The fairy looked round the room.
"Well," he said, "I should like to stay very much, but I really don't see any place here for me to live. My rosebud will soon die and be thrown away."
"But if I were to keep the rosebud always, even when it was dead? Would you stay then?"
The fairy thought for a moment.
"I tell you plainly," he said, "that I don't like the idea of living in a dead rosebud. But I know it's done sometimes, and one mustn't be too particular when one has only one wing."
"I'll ask the little girl who brought you here to come and see you often," said Granny, "and you and I will go out to-morrow and buy some picture-books for her, and some chocolates, and then we shall all three enjoy ourselves together."
The fairy nodded happily.
"That settles it," he said. "I'll stay."
THE LITTLE BOY FROM TOWN
IF you spend all the year in a big town it is a fine thing to have a summer holiday near the sea. Otherwise you never have a chance of making friends with the sea-fairies or the mermaids, who are the most delightful playmates in the world. You may know all kinds of other fairies, and be quite intimate with them, but as long as you live nothing can ever make up to you for not knowing the sea-fairies.