He held out his hand and then looked at it.
“It’s not raining yet,” he observed; “still——”
Without finishing his sentence he unfolded a pink parasol and tossed it into the air. It sailed away, slowly at first, then more rapidly as the light wind caught it and carried it out of sight beyond the lilac-bush.
“I won’t need it till it begins to rain,” he explained, “so they might as well have it.”
“Who?” gasped Billy.
“The sunbeams. If a sunbeam gets wet he’s done for. Haven’t you ever noticed that?”
Billy thought he had noticed something of the kind. Anyway the sunbeams all disappeared directly it began to rain. But being just an ordinary little boy, he was much more interested in the conversation of the wonderful stranger than he was in sunbeams, and that is why he asked:
“What is your name, if you please?”
“My name is Nimbus and I live in the clouds with the other fairies. I was named after one of the clouds.”
“But,” objected Billy, “I don’t believe in fairies.”