"No!" said the sprite, shaking his head. "It is true my mind is not on my lessons. But my thoughts do not wander at all. They always follow yours."
Then the man stopped talking, and the other sprites laughed behind their hands. But the one who had been reproved went on drawing pictures in the back of his botany book. The face in the pictures was always the same, but none of them seemed to satisfy him, for he always rubbed them out and began over again.
After several weeks of hard work the master thought his pupil must have learned something, so he gave him a holiday, and asked him what he would like to do.
"Go with you," he answered, "when you take her your new stories."
So they went together, and the lady complimented the writer on his success as an educator.
"Your pupil does you credit," said she, "he talks nicely about botany and deportment. But I am a little troubled to see him looking so pale. Perhaps you have been too severe with him. I must take him out in the garden with me every day to play a while."
"You have a kind heart," said the man, "and I hope he will appreciate it."
This agreeable and amicable life continued for some weeks, and everybody was glad that affairs had arranged themselves. But one day the lady brought a new complaint.
"He is a strange little creature, and he has begun to annoy me in the most extraordinary way." "That is bad," said the man. "What does he do now?"
"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is just the trouble. When I want to talk about you, he refuses, and says he does not like you as much as he used to. When I propose to play a game, he says he is tired and would rather sit under a tree and hear stories. When I tell them he says they do not suit him, they all end happily, and that is stupid. He is very perverse. But he clings to me like a bur. He is always teasing me to tell him the name of every flower in my garden and given him one of every kind."