“Yes, Ailie; the one in the middle, you mean, don’t you? Yes, well?”
“Well,” continued the child, eagerly and hurriedly, as if she feared to lose the thread of memory that formed the warp and woof of the delicate fabric she had been engaged in weaving; “well, I began there; I went in behind it, and I met a fairy—not really, you know, but I tried to think I met one, so I began to speak to her, and then I made her speak to me, and her voice was so small and soft and sweet. She had on silver wings, and a star—a bright star in her forehead—and she carried a wand with a star on the top of it too. So I asked her to take me to see her kingdom, and I made her say she would—and, do you know, Glynn, I really felt at last as if she didn’t wait for me to tell her what to say, but just went straight on, answering my questions, and putting questions to me in return. Wasn’t it funny?
“Well, we went on, and on, and on—the fairy and me—up one beautiful mountain of snow and down another, talking all the time so pleasantly, until we came to a great dark cave; so I made up my mind to make a lion come out of it; but the fairy said, ‘No, let it be a bear;’ and immediately a great bear came out. Wasn’t it strange? It really seemed as if the fairy had become real, and could do things of her own accord.”
The child paused at this point, and looking with an expression of awe into her companion’s face, said— “Do you think, Glynn, that people can think so hard that fairies really come to them?”
Glynn looked perplexed.
“No, Ailie, I suspect they can’t—not because we can’t think hard enough, but because there are no fairies to come.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” replied the child sadly.
“Why?” inquired Glynn.
“Because I love them so much—of course, I mean the good ones. I don’t like the bad ones—though they’re very useful, because they’re nice to kill, and punish, and make examples of, and all that, when the good ones catch them.”
“So they are,” said the youth, smiling. “I never thought of that before. But go on with your ramble in the clouds.”