“N—no, I don’t think we ever do; still, if I had on my best dress, I’d go in.”
“Well, if you won’t come, I’m going alone,” returned Ray, and he started off and left Dorothy standing there.
“O Ray, come back! come back!” called Dorothy. “I’ll go with you.” But Ray was so far ahead that he never heard his little cousin calling, and the last Dorothy saw of him he was just going into the castle. Dorothy felt so badly to think that she was left alone she sat on the silvery ground and began to cry. Then a very queer thing happened. The first tear that rolled down Dorothy’s cheeks congealed into a tiny solid silver ball, and fell in her lap.
Dorothy stopped crying and gazed at the tear that had become a silver ball. She took it up in her hand, and all of a sudden it began to grow larger and larger. Then it changed a little in shape, and almost before Dorothy knew it her silver tear-drop had turned itself into the dearest little silver bell you ever saw.
“How pretty!” exclaimed Dorothy, and she rang the tiny bell that had been made from a tear-drop in her own blue eye.
It gave the prettiest little tinkling sound in the world and she liked it so well that she rang it again and again.
Suddenly there appeared before Dorothy a beautiful fairy in a shimmering gown of silvery gray.
“I am sorry you had to ring so many times for me,” said the fairy, “but I was busy dressing Princess Bell and I could not get here sooner.”
“I did not ring for you,” answered Dorothy, “but I am very glad you came.”
“Whenever that bell is rung I come,” said the fairy. “Pray tell me what I can do for you?”