So the girls ran joyously into the big, comfortable room, piled logs on the fire, heaped a lot of cushions on the rug before it, and snuggled down deliciously to wait, and feel lonely.
“I wonder if we’ll ever be able to see her,” Ruth murmured. “Wouldn’t it be funny to meet her somewhere and not know her unless she spoke first?”
“Huh! I guess if we saw a fairy anywhere we could be mighty certain——”
“It was your fairy, eh?”
Both girls started, as they always did when the honey-sweet tinkle of that voice made itself heard. And then they giggled delightedly.
“Oh, fairy, here you are. And we do want one of your Magic Gate adventures so much. We’re so lonely and tired of its being such horrid weather that we can’t stay out a second without feeling friz, as Jake says.”
“Which means you wouldn’t be sitting here and wishing for me if you had an earthly thing to do?” and the fairy’s voice sounded a bit mocking.
“Fairy, dear, it isn’t our fault. Somehow you never get into our minds when anything else is going on, or when any one else is there. Don’t you fix it that way yourself? We’re sure you do. I guess we wouldn’t think of anything but you if you didn’t.”
The fairy laughed. “So you’ve found me out,” she gurgled. “Clever young ones. Yes, I suppose I am at the bottom of it. I couldn’t have you calling for me all the time, or I’d like to know how I’d get through my work. Well, what shall we do now I am here?”
Ruth leaped up excitedly: