"Dear Aunt Laura," he said, "I am very sorry, but I can't go."
"Can't go? and why not?"
"Because I can't go and leave Bertie here all alone," he said stoutly. "When I was going to be alone he wrote and asked his mother to let me go home with him. She could not have either of us because Bertie's sister has scarlet fever. He has to stay here, and he has never been away from home at Christmas time before, and I can't go away and leave him by himself, Aunt Laura."
For a minute Aunt Laura looked at the boy as if she could not believe him. Then she caught him in her arms and kissed him.
"You dear little boy, you shall not leave him. You shall bring him along, and we shall all enjoy ourselves together. Bertie, my boy, you are not very old yet, but I am going to teach you a lesson as well as I can. It is that kindness is never wasted in this world."
And so Bertie and Tom found that there was such a thing as a fairy after all.
XXXIII. THE GREATEST OF THESE*
*This story was first printed in the Youth's Companion, vol. 76.
JOSEPH MILLS HANSON