"Now, these little folks, like most girls and boys,
Loved fairy tales even better than toys.
* * * * *
And they knew that in flowers on the spray
Tiny spirits are hidden away,
That frisk at night on the forest green,
When earth is bathed in dewy sheen—
And shining halls of pearl and gem,
The Regions of Fancy—were open to them."
"... just as any little child has been guided towards the true paradise by its fairy dreams of bliss."—E. A. Abbott.
I
THE OLD HOUSE
"Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country seat."
nce upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old house. Such a house as you could hardly find nowadays, however you searched, for it belonged to a gone-by time—a time now quite passed away.
It stood in a street, but yet it was not like a town house, for though the front opened right on to the pavement, the back windows looked out upon a beautiful, quaintly terraced
garden, with old trees growing so thick and close together that in summer it was like living on the edge of a forest to be near them; and even in winter the web of their interlaced branches hid all clear view behind.