"Yes," he said, nodding his head gently. "Maybe we are a bit different from most of those about us. You, anyway, Merran. I've seen strange lands and beautiful places, but you—you give me the feeling that once upon a time you must have had a glimpse of real fairyland."
Merran grew red at this, but she made no reply.
Only to herself she said, "I wish—I do wish I might tell him," and then she grew still redder when the words of the Sunshine fairy returned to her memory that only to one person might she ever reveal her secret.
"And that one will never be my fate," thought the girl sadly. "Dirk will never care for me in that way, and never could I care for any one but him."
Whereas on his side, Dirk said to himself that he must never hope to win the sweet weather maiden for himself. "Why, half the young fellows in the country-side, and old ones too, are ready to woo her if she'd let them! They think she'd bring good luck to her husband, and so she would. But it's not for that I'd care for her—it's that I love her for her own self, luck or no luck."
And one day—one happy day—had the Sunshine fairy whispered to him to take courage, I wonder?—he determined to risk it, and told the maiden his hopes and fears, and found how little reason for the latter there had been, and the two young things, who had drawn to each other from their first meeting, before long were married, carrying with them to a home of their own the magic gifts, now, to Merran's delight, her husband's as much as her own.
Good fortune was theirs. Whatever Dirk undertook, whatever Merran planned, prospered. And that it should be so, they deserved. For they remained kindly and unselfish, ever ready to help others less happy than themselves, grateful for their blessings, patient under trials, of which, as life cannot be always sunshine, they had their share. They lived, I was told, to a good old age. What became of the fairy treasures, I cannot say. Whether they were handed down to their children, or whether they were whisked back to fairyland, I know not, not any more than I know what has become of all the toy "rain-houses" which in our grand-parents' times were so often to be seen. The world is growing too clever for the fairies, I fear, unless perhaps, unseen and unsuspected, they are still behind the scenes in some of the marvels and inventions all around us. Who can say?
And by the bye, I have heard it whispered that in a certain out-of-the-way corner of this dear old country there lives a family whose sons and daughters have a curious gift of "weather wisdom." Maybe they are the descendants of our Dirk and his Merran?