She had begun to move slowly, almost timidly, towards the children. She knelt before them and took the little hand of Sue in hers and looked upon it with wonder. She touched it with her lips; she pressed it against her cheek; she trembled beneath its power. The touch of the child's hand was, for her, it would almost seem, like that of One on the eyes of Bartimeus. Suddenly, as by a miracle, Edith Dunmore rose out of childhood. The veil of the nun was rent away. She was a woman fast coming into riches of unsuspected inheritance. She put her arms about the two and gently drew them towards her and held them close. Her embrace and the touch of her breast upon theirs were grateful to them, and they kissed her. Her eyes were wet, her sweet voice full of familiar but uncomprehended longing when she said, "Dear little children!"
"Tut, tut!" said the tame crow, who had crept to the end of his branch, where he stood looking down at them. In a moment he began to break the green twigs and let them fall on the head of his mistress.
Sue felt the hair and looked into the face and eyes of the maiden with wondering curiosity. Socky ran his fingers over the beaded belt. Both had a suspicion which they dared not express that here was an angel in some way related to their mother.
"You are a beautiful lady," said the boy, with childish frankness.
Master has often tried to describe the scene. He confesses that words, even though vivid and well spoken, cannot make one to understand the something which lay beneath all said and done, and which went to his heart so that for a time he turned and walked away from them.
"Do you remember when you were fairies?" the girl asked of the children.
The latter shook their heads.
"Tell us about the fairies," Sue proposed, timidly.
"They are old, old people—so my father has told me," said the beautiful lady. "They came into this world thousands of years ago riding in a great cloud that was drawn by wild geese. The fairies came down, each on a big flake of snow, and got off in the tree-tops and never went away. At first they were the teentiest folks—so little that a hundred of them could stand on a maple leaf—and very, very old. My father says they were never young in their lives, and I guess they have always lived. They rode around on the backs of the birds and saw everything in the world and had such a good time they all began to grow young. Now, as they grew young they grew bigger and bigger, and every spring a lot more of the little old people came out of the sky and began to grow young like the others. And by-and-by some of them were as big as your thumb and bigger."
"How big do they grow?" the boy asked.