"I thought fairies were always in a good humour," said Percy. "I didn't know they were ever angry."
"Oh, I think Ted's right," said Mabel. "They are angry with people who are dirty or untidy. Don't you remember a story about them coming to work in a house where the kitchen was always left tidy at night? And they never would come to the next house because it was always in a mess."
"P'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted.
"I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she replied.
"Do you remember," said Percy, who was lying on the ground staring up at the sky and the bit of brown mountain peak that could be seen from where he was, "do you remember, Mab, the story of a little boy that fell asleep on the top of a mountain, and the fairies spirited him away, and took him down to their country, down inside the mountain? And he thought he had only been away—when he came home again, I mean, for they had to let him out again after a while—he thought he had only been away a day or two, and, fancy, it had been twenty years! All the children had grown big, and the young people middle-aged, and the middle-aged people quite old, and none of them knew him again. He had lost all his childhood. Wasn't it sad?"
"Yes, very" said Mabel; "I remember the story."
"I think it's dedful," said Ted. "I don't like mountains, and I don't like diants. I'll never go up a mountain, never."
"But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said Percy. "And it wasn't giants, it was fairies."
"I sink p'raps it was diants," persisted Ted. "I don't like zem. Mr. Brand is a diant," he added mysteriously, in a low voice.
Percy had been thinking of what Ted's mother had said. Now he felt sure that it was something to do with Mr. Brand that had frightened the little fellow. But Mabel did not know about it.