"And so much as I used to long to see a fairy!" sighed Bab to herself; "and now I really wish she would go away.
"What are you prepared to do about Blackamè?—tell me," demanded the fairy, suddenly.
She made Bab jump, but Bab did not mind that; she was a straightforward child, and liked to go direct at a thing. She reflected, and then she faced the difficulty she had got into bravely, and replied in a grave, resolute way, "Anything you wish."
The fairy looked at her. "Why couldn't you say so before?" she said, very sharply. "It would have saved all this trouble."
Again Bab felt that it was not fair—she thought the fairy was unfairer even than Selina; but she was a fairy, and besides that, Bab had brought Blackamè down upon them; so she said instantly, not meekly and humbly; for that was not her way—but in a resolute, hearty manner, that gave one confidence to see—"Just tell me, and I'll do it."
"I'll tell you," said the fairy quite good-naturedly, "and you'll do it. That's quite fair. Well now, the thing to do is this: go out in the evening with a long pole, and knock up high into the branches of the trees, and glance up and down, holding your dress out, and singing:—
'I'm the girl that brought him in, Blackamè! What a rout! Little birds that cannot sin. Drive the wretched fellow out, Blackamè;'
And then you'll see——" but what she was to see Bab never knew; something touched her, and then rushed with headlong sound through the window. The fairy was gone, and, stranger still, the bright beautiful book, with its butterflies and fairies, was gone too.
She looked lazily round her, and, to her surprise, saw Selina standing at the other end of the table.
"Why are you home so early?"