'No!' cried Priscilla, 'no, please! Oh, fairy, let me off that! If I must drop them, let them be false ones to punish me—not real. I don't want to be rewarded any more for being good—if I ever am really good!'
'Come,' said the fairy, with a much pleasanter smile, 'you are not a hopeless case, at all events. It shall be as you wish, then, and perhaps it will be the wisest arrangement for all parties. Now run away home, and see how little use you can make of your fairy gift.'
Priscilla found her family still at breakfast.
'Why,' observed her father, raising his eyebrows as she entered the room, 'here's our little monitor—(or is it monitress, eh, Priscilla?)—back again. Children, we shall all have to mind our p's and q's—and, indeed, our entire alphabet, now!'
'I'm sure,' said her mother, kissing her fondly, 'Priscilla knows we're all delighted to have her home!'
'I'm not,' said Alick, with all a boy's engaging candour.
'Nor am I,' added Betty, 'it's been ever so much nicer at home while she's been away!'
Priscilla burst into tears as she hid her face upon her mother's protecting shoulder. 'It's true!' she sobbed, 'I don't deserve that you should be glad to see me—I've been hateful and horrid, I know—but, oh, if you'll only forgive me and love me and put up with me a little, I'll try not to preach and be a prig any more—I will truly!'
And at this her father called her to his side and embraced her with a fervour he had not shown for a very long time.