"There would have been if occasion had called for them," Celia answered.
"But you don't want to believe things if they aren't true, do you?" Katherine looked puzzled. "I wish there were fairies now, but I know there aren't."
"You can't prove there aren't," asserted Jack, mischievously.
"Why, Jack, you know there aren't any fairies really."
"I said you couldn't prove it."
"How can you say they do not exist unless you have seen one not existing? Isn't that the argument in 'Water Babies'?" laughed Celia, as she carried the currants into the kitchen. "It is the difference between fact and fancy, Katherine," she said, coming back.
"I love to pretend things," said Rosalind.
"So do I," echoed Belle.
"Fancy does more than that, it really makes things beautiful. For instance, it makes the difference between a plain, straight letter such as you see in the newspaper and such a letter as I was embroidering yesterday. Some one's fancy saw the plain S ornamented with curving lines and sprays of flowers, and so it came to be made so."
"That makes me think of those beautiful books the monks used to make," said Maurice.