Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

THE FAIRY LATCHKEY

BY

MAGDALENE HORSFALL

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

18 EAST 17th STREET :: :: NEW YORK

CONTENTS

CHAPTER [I] WHICH INTRODUCES THE HEROINE, AND OTHERS

CHAPTER [II] WHICH INTRODUCES THE HEROINE’S GODMOTHER

CHAPTER [III] WHICH TELLS OF A KEY-HOLE IN A WALL

CHAPTER [IV] WHICH INTRODUCES SWEET WILLIAM

CHAPTER [V] IN WHICH THE HEROINE DISTINGUISHES HERSELF

CHAPTER [VI] IN WHICH THE HEROINE TAKES ADVICE

CHAPTER [VII] IN WHICH MASTER MUSTARDSEED TELLS HIS STORY

CHAPTER [VIII] IN WHICH THE HEROINE MAKES THE FIRST USE OF HER LATCHKEY

CHAPTER [IX] IN WHICH SWEET WILLIAM TELLS A STORY

CHAPTER [X] IN WHICH THE HEROINE HAS A BIRTHDAY

CHAPTER [XI] IN WHICH THE HEROINE IS GIVEN A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER [XII] IN WHICH THE HEROINE PRESENTS HER LETTER OF INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER [XIII] IN WHICH GREAT GOOD FORTUNE BEFALLS THE HEROINE

CHAPTER [XIV] IN WHICH THE MERMAN TELLS HIS STORY

CHAPTER [XV] IN WHICH THE TWIN SISTERS TELL A STORY BETWEEN THEM

CHAPTER [XVI] IN WHICH THE HEROINE HEARS SOME STARTLING NEWS

CHAPTER [XVII] IN WHICH SWEET WILLIAM TELLS ANOTHER STORY

CHAPTER [XVIII] OF WHICH THE SCENE IS LAID IN A SICK-ROOM

CHAPTER [XIX] IN WHICH QUEEN MAB TELLS HER STORY

CHAPTER [XX] IN WHICH THE HEROINE MAKES FRIENDS WITH A SPIRIT

CHAPTER [XXI] IN WHICH THE WHITE LÉTICHE TELLS HER STORY

CHAPTER [XXII] WHICH HERALDS A CHANGE

THE FAIRY LATCHKEY

CHAPTER I
WHICH INTRODUCES THE HEROINE, AND OTHERS

There was nothing at all remarkable about her, excepting her name, which was Philomène Isolde, and the fact that a knot of green ribbon had been sewn upon her christening dress; but the dress had long since lain folded in a drawer, and her father as often as not called her “Little Miss Muffet,” because she was very fond of curds and whey, and very much afraid of spiders. When he did call her “Philomène,” it meant that he was too busy to have her in the room with him. Unlike most people, she was satisfied with her own name, indeed she was proud of it; for Daddy had told her that Philomène meant “beloved,” and as for Isolde, that was Godmother’s own name. “And Isolde,” said Godmother, “was a real Princess.”

“I wish I were a real Princess,” said Philomène, and waited for Nurse to add, “If wishes were horses, Miss, beggars might ride,” which she forthwith did.

Philomène was not a pretty child, but neither was she exactly plain, for she had small hands and feet, and a trim little figure, hazel eyes and plenty of soft mouse-coloured hair. And if there was nothing unusual about her appearance, there was certainly nothing unusual about her home, for she lived in a commonplace suburb of London, in a commonplace villa called Sideview. The house undoubtedly had two sides, but scarcely any view, unless the strip of back-garden counted as such. The drawing-room and dining-room opened out of a narrow hall, and both had about them the chill and mustiness of disuse, for since the death of Philomène’s mother the drawing-room had seen no more parties, and her father, who was a hard-working doctor, as often as not snatched his hurried meals in the study, rather than in the dining-room. Philomène’s own bedroom and schoolroom, on the upper landing, were large airy rooms for the size of the house.

At the foot of her bed stood a screen, upon which Froggy went a-wooing, and Little Red Ridinghood carried her covered basket through the wood, and on the wall opposite hung a picture of a young shepherdess, clasping her crook, and kneeling in the shade of a spreading oak-tree. As there was no flock in sight, Philomène at first supposed her to be Bo-peep before her sheep came home, but Godmother had told her that it was Joan, the Maid of Orleans, who died for love of France and of the truth; and from that time forward, on winter evenings when the salamanders began their torch-light revels on the hearth, Philomène would lie in bed and watch the ruddy reflection brighten and broaden among the branches of the oak, wrapping the frail young figure in a winding-sheet of flame, and placing the hard-won wreath of martyrdom upon her hair.

Over the mantelpiece in the schoolroom next door, hung another picture, one which had belonged to Philomène’s mother. There was a road white with dust in the foreground, disappearing amidst a clump of trees, above which floated a wreath of blue smoke. Down to the road there sloped a bank of grass, and here sat a woman with a child in her lap, while a bird on the wing paused to peck from an ear of corn which the baby held in his hand. Beside the two an old man with kind eyes and work-worn hands was unsaddling a small grey donkey, and a little further down the road stood a ruined shrine with a broken idol. Philomène liked the donkey with its long ears and sad eyes, and felt grateful to the old man for allowing it to nibble the grass at will.

It was in the schoolroom that Philomène kept her toys. There was the dolls’ house and the dolls’ kitchen, and the musical box, and the paint-box with its palettes and saucers and brushes. Last, but by no means least, came the book-shelf. It held all Mrs Ewing’s stories, and all Mrs Molesworth’s, Grimm, and Hans Andersen, and many more besides. Philomène used to act all the stories out of these books, but it is dull work to be both players and audience yourself, and it needs an imagination bordering on genius to ride alone upon a bed, and persuade your heart of hearts that it is Pegasus, the wonderful winged horse.

“And nothing ever happens to me,” mused Philomène, “as it happens to people in books. I do not live in a chateau with a terrace and a raven, like Jeanne in ‘The Tapestry-Room,’ and when I play with the reels in Nurse’s work-box they do not behave in the least like Louisa’s reels in ‘Tell Me a Story.’ I suppose it is because I am just ordinary.”

It was a depressing thought, but facts could not be shelved. Philomène’s cuckoo clock certainly acted very differently from Griselda’s. So far from inviting her to climb up by the two long dangling chains, and take a seat opposite to him on a red velvet arm-chair, this disobliging bird uttered his “cuckoos” in a hasty, perfunctory manner, and then shut to the door of his house with a snap, as who should say, “That’s over till next time.”

In the schoolroom window hung a cage with a canary in it; he was of a bright yellow, all but his head, which was green, and Philomène had christened him Master Mustardseed, after one of the fairy pages in “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Now this canary had something of a history. To begin with, he had had a predecessor, a canary that had been yellow all over, and so tame that he would perch upon Philomène’s needle when she sewed, or upon her book when she read. Then one day the old maidservant, Lilian Augusta, had left the schoolroom window open and the cage-door ajar, and the canary flew out, never to return, and there was lamentation at Sideview. But a few days later a strange thing happened. Through the open window, into the empty cage, flew another canary, this time with a little head as green and velvety as moss; Master Mustardseed, in short, who had remained with his new mistress ever since.

Besides her canary, Philomène had another pet, a white cat called Queen Mab, with paws as soft as pussy-willow and a footfall as light as any snowflake. Now this was how Queen Mab had first come to Sideview:—It was Christmas Eve, and Philomène stood at the dining-room window, listening to the waits, who were singing a Christmas carol:

“He lies ’mid the beasts of the stall,

Who is Maker and Lord of us all.

The winter wind blows cold and dreary;

See, he weeps, the world is weary,

Lord, have pity and mercy on me.

Come, come, come to the manger,

Kneel ye now to the newborn King;

Sing, sing, chorus of angels,

Stars of the morning, o’er Bethlehem sing!”

After that they moved on to the next house, and began the second verse.

“He leaves all his glory behind,

To be born and to die for mankind;

’Midst grateful beasts his cradle chooses,

Thankless man his love refuses.

Lord, have pity and mercy on me.”

It was bitterly cold. Philomène closed the window, and as she did so a mew caught her attention. In another moment she had the hall-door open, and a gust of icy air met her, as though the very wind were trying to force its way into the house for shelter. Upon the doorstep sat a white kitten, draggled and shivering. Philomène picked it up at once, shut the door, and ran upstairs to the schoolroom, all in a flutter of pity and excitement. Nurse looked up from her sewing, and stared at her aghast.

“Well, Miss Philomène,” she exclaimed at length, “I wonder what you will be up to next? Put that dirty little cat down this minute.”

Philomène obeyed. “I wanted it to have some of the milk that was left over from supper,” she protested timidly.

“And so it may,” retorted Nurse, whose bark was worse than her bite, “so long as you don’t go on holding it against your dress.”

So Philomène took a saucer, and busied herself with the kitten on the hearth-rug. This was a bearskin, and had figured many a time in solitary games of Beauty and the Beast, for it had served as the hero’s costume till he finally became a prince and discarded it, when Philomène, whose housewifely little soul disliked waste, had made the princess suggest that it should be lined with red flannel, and turned into a useful rug for the throne-room. The kitten lapped up the milk eagerly, and settled itself comfortably in front of the fire.

“And now you had better put it back where it came from, Miss,” said Nurse.

“The saucer?” inquired Philomène blankly.

“No, child, the cat.”

“But it came from the doorstep!” exclaimed Philomène, and seeing no relenting in Nurse’s face, she burst into tears. At this moment her father came into the room.

“What? Tears, little maid?” he called out in surprise.

“Oh, Daddy, it’s so cold outside, and it hasn’t done anybody any harm, and it won’t have any Christmas, and perhaps it’s one of the ‘grateful beasts’ in the carol,” sobbed Philomène.

“It certainly seemed grateful enough for the milk,” said Nurse, who had not listened to the waits, and was of a literal turn of mind, “but I don’t much fancy a stray cat in the kitchen all the same.”

The doctor sat down in the red-cushioned rocking-chair, and took his child on his knee. He was a tall, well-made man with dark hair, keen eyes, and a somewhat abrupt manner, but he was never anything but gentle with his little daughter, and Philomène’s sobs subsided as he stroked her hair and patted her cheek.

“Look here, little Miss Muffet,” he said, “I will tell you what we will do. We will ask Nurse to let us keep the pussy over-night, and later on we will advertise in the newspaper, just as we did for Master Mustardseed, and if it doesn’t seem to belong to anyone or to come from anywhere in particular, you shall have it for your own, and Nurse won’t mind it if it catches the mice in the scullery, will she?”

Philomène’s face cleared, and she looked beseechingly at Nurse. “You are master in this house, sir,” admitted Nurse, “and it seems useless to fight against this love of dumb things. Cats especially do seem to run in families.”

So the white kitten stayed, and grew into a white cat, glossy and well-liking, that followed Philomène about the house “like a dog,” said the people who had never taken the trouble to befriend a cat.

CHAPTER II
WHICH INTRODUCES THE HEROINE’S GODMOTHER

If Philomène had not actually a fairy godmother, she had at least the nearest possible approach to one. To begin with, Godmother was beautiful. She had the red hair that artists love, a wild-rose complexion, and a gentle, even voice, which never scolded and never sneered; she had cool white hands with twinkling rings, and her dresses made a stately silken frou-frou on the stairs, bringing with them a faint fragrance of lavender and old-world pot-pourri.

She had a dear little country house called the Cushats, which stood among pinewoods where pigeons cooed to each other all day long, and the sea was not far off. Here the summer holidays were spent by Philomène, “little cushat” as Godmother called her at times, for, as the Danish proverb says, “a dear child has many names.” She would sit by the hour in the oak-panelled drawing-room, strumming on the quaint old spinet, or in the window-seat reading, while the bees murmured perpetually in the blossoming lime-tree outside. The garden was full of what are usually called old-fashioned flowers, though for my own part I should be slow to connect anything quite so tiresome as fashion, with anything quite so sweet as flowers. There the snowdrops came at Candlemas, and the daffodils on Lady Day, and there was a whole big hedge of the rosemary that Shakespeare loved.

Besides the Cushats, Godmother had a house in London, where there were broad flights of stairs with shallow steps, and vistas of reception rooms with polished floors and beautiful pictures and cabinets filled with eastern curios. Godmother’s own boudoir was a remote hushed corner, where in midwinter forced lilac drugged the air with subtle sweetness.

It was here that Philomène often took tea with her, and when full justice had been done to the toast and cakes, Isolde would take her seat in a low chair before the fire, and Philomène, curling herself up on the hearth-rug, much as Queen Mab might have done had she been invited, would lay her clasped hands in her godmother’s lap, and begin to “want to know.”

“Godmother,” she had said on one of these occasions, “I want to know if it is cruel to keep caged birds. Do you remember when you took me to church with you a few Sundays ago, and they went round singing the Litany? Well, just as the choir-men passed me they were saying, ‘and to show thy pity upon all prisoners and captives,’ and I thought at once of Master Mustardseed.”

“But Master Mustardseed came to you of his own accord,” replied Godmother in her kind, low voice, “and I think a canary might find it very difficult to fend for himself if you set him free in England. All the same, when you are grown up, you need never keep any caged birds if you do not want to.”

“Well then, you know the picture in the schoolroom with the baby in it, and the bird pecking at the ear of corn,” continued Philomène. “I had just made up such a nice story about it all, when Miss Mills told me that it was a ‘Flight into Egypt,’ and that I ought not to make a play of it. But how was I to know? They hadn’t any halos. And, O Godmother, I had just planned that the ugly idol had enchanted a prince and princess and had turned them into the donkey and the bird, and that the grass and the corn they were eating would turn them back again. Then I asked Miss Mills what the idol and the bird really did mean, but she could not tell me. She only said she supposed it must be some silly legend. Whenever Miss Mills does not know the answer to what I ask her, she says it must be a silly legend. What do they mean, Godmother?”

“The picture is a modern one,” said Isolde, “that is why the Holy Family are painted without halos, and Miss Mills was quite right about its being a legend. Your mother once told me all the different things that the painter had tried to express in his picture. The smoke above the trees is supposed to come from an inn, where the inn-keeper and his wife have just refused to give shelter to the travellers, and it is said that their children’s children are the gipsies, who have now no settled home or shelter of their own. Then there is another story that when the idols of Egypt recognized the true God, they fell down and were broken. The bird with the outspread wings is the human soul, and the Lord is feeding it with the Bread of Life.”

“Still you don’t think the Holy Family will mind my having made up the other story about them, do you?” inquired Philomène anxiously. But Godmother only shook her head and smiled.

Philomène certainly asked a great many questions, but then Isolde was never tired of answering them. Yet though she loved her goddaughter dearly, it was not entirely for her own sake. For she was Rachel’s child.

Rachel and Isolde had known each other almost all their lives. As little children they strung daisy chains and made cowslip balls together, as school-girls they helped each other with their compositions on Simon de Montfort and the pleasures of a country walk, and when they had grown to womanhood, Rachel’s marriage in no way lessened their friendship. It was while she lay dying that she confided her baby to the love of her friend. “Be good to her, beloved, as you have been to me, and I should like her to be called Isolde Philomène—Isolde.”

A portrait of Rachel in her wedding-dress hung in Isolde’s boudoir, and Philomène had grown to love the sweet face and the white folds of the train. On entering the room her first glance was always for godmother, and the second for her mother’s portrait.

CHAPTER III
WHICH TELLS OF A KEY-HOLE IN A WALL

Now when Philomène was still quite a little girl she had had some playfellows whom neither Nurse nor Miss Mills knew anything about, and these were her green dwarfs and Mrs Handy.

The green dwarfs (there were six of them) lived in the wall beside her bed; they wore pointed shoes and peaked hats, and they waited upon her as pages. She could not remember ever having deliberately invented them; she had gradually come to know them. No sooner had Nurse closed the bedroom door and sat down to her sewing-machine at the schoolroom table, than Philomène would knock upon the wall against which her bed was placed, and the dwarfs would appear, not all together, but one by one, peaked hats foremost. Then they would keep her amused, generally by story-telling, till she felt herself growing drowsy, when she would wave her hand right royally, and back they would disappear into the wall.

Mrs Handy was her companion in the daytime, and she was a most useful friend, equally good at inventing games and at helping with lessons. Moreover, strange to say, she always came to live at Sideview when Godmother was out of town, and as soon as Godmother returned, Mrs Handy would take a journey to Troy or the Rocky Mountains, or some such place of interest, promising to re-visit Sideview as soon as Godmother left London, and to be sure and give Philomène an exciting account of her adventures abroad.

But as Philomène grew older, she gradually realised with sorrow that neither the green dwarfs nor Mrs Handy were anything more than a make-believe, and in her grief at having had to say good-bye to them, she turned for comfort to the pleasures of story-writing, and to the thought of the mysterious key-hole in the garden wall.

The garden of Sideview was flanked on three sides by a wall, and on the fourth by the back of the house. There was a lawn bordered by a path, and at the end farthest from the house there was a large strawberry bed. Flower-beds were laid out between the path and the wall, some young fruit-trees that never seemed to bear any fruit grew near the strawberry bed, and close to the house an iron staircase, with a pump at the foot of it, climbed to the level of a garden door that opened out of the schoolroom.

“I wish a fairy caretaker with a red cloak lived in our garden wall, and would tell me stories as she did to Mrs Molesworth’s children,” thought Philomène regretfully, “but then that was in the ‘Enchanted Garden,’ and I never did see a garden in all my life that looked less enchanted than ours. It is so flat, and there is no water in it, unless you count the pump, no pond or fountain, and it isn’t a bit neglected either, with the man coming twice a week to mow the grass.”

One large flower-bed, about half way down the garden, was Philomène’s very own. It was divided in two by a tiny path, on either side of which grew marigolds and London-pride, and her initials in mustard and cress. The box-bordered path ended abruptly where it ran against the wall, and it was in this wall that the unaccountable key-hole was to be seen. Philomène reasoned that where there was a key-hole there must be a key and a person to turn it, yet she had watched it by the hour, as a cat watches a mouse-hole, but without result, so that at last she gave up hope, and went back to her story-writing.

It was an afternoon early in May, tea was over, and Philomène sat in the red-cushioned rocking-chair, scribbling her latest novel. It was very quiet in the schoolroom; only the ticking of the cuckoo clock, the click of Nurse’s knitting-needles, and the scratching of Philomène’s pen were to be heard.

“There had come to the castle,” Philomène had just written, “an old man who must have seen the snowdrops herald the Spring some ninety times, with an aged woman to cook.” She was not altogether pleased with the sound of this sentence when it was finished, but after making several vain attempts to alter it, she added a foot-note: “Bad grammar, but unavoidable.”

“Miss Philomène,” said Nurse, “I wish you would go out into the garden, like a dear good child. Only look at the fine weather, and it isn’t as if you were writing anything for Miss Mills neither.” So Philomène rose reluctantly, after having first written “To be con” at the end of the page, for she had not as yet made up her mind whether the story was “to be continued” or “concluded in our next.” Then she fetched her garden hat, and went to fill her watering-can at the pump.

It was still and sunny in the open, and the hum of insects sounded louder than the hum of traffic. In the lilac bush a blackbird was practising his grace-notes, so as to be in good voice for the many concerts of the on-coming season, and a warm west wind passed through the garden in long, happy sighs, as though the young summer were drawing its first deep breaths of lazy contentment. Philomène began watering and weeding her garden, and from time to time she looked up at the key-hole in the wall.

“If one is just ordinary oneself,” she said half aloud, “and lives in an ordinary house, I expect fairy things simply can’t happen. Some day, though, I must write a book about them, as if they really had happened; I suppose that is the next best thing.”

At that moment she caught sight of a dandelion about to seed, growing between her box borders; she stooped to pick the beautiful thing, and at once began to blow upon the “nursery clock,” so that the seeds took wing in all directions.

CHAPTER IV
WHICH INTRODUCES SWEET WILLIAM

“If you could let me have the right time, I should be obliged to you,” said a voice at her elbow. Philomène started, so that the now dishevelled globe of seeds fell from her hand on to the gravel, and she turned to see who it was that had spoken to her. By her side stood a little man in a vivid green suit; in her first surprise she thought it must be one of the six dwarfs come back to her again, but in another moment she noticed that his shoes had rounded toes, and that his hat, although pointed, had a red and white cockade in it.

“That is not the proper way in which to treat a watch, child,” said the mannikin crossly, and stooping to pick up the dandelion, he blew upon it gently.

“Five o’clock,” said he, “just about tea-time.” And then Philomène’s heart gave a sudden throb, for out of his waistcoat pocket he took a key, which he fitted into the key-hole. A little stone door swung outwards in the wall, and the mannikin hesitated upon the threshold.

“‘IF YOU COULD LET ME HAVE THE RIGHT TIME I SHOULD BE OBLIGED TO YOU.’”
Page [22]
The Fairy Latchkey.

“All things considered,” he remarked slowly, “and especially the green ribbons, I think I may do myself the pleasure of asking you to step in.”

He was speaking quite politely this time, and Philomène entered, her pulse all in a flutter, like some bird that has flown in by the window and cannot find its way out again. The door shut to behind her, and she saw that she was in a little square room. The ceiling was of stone, as indeed was only to be expected, since it was part of the wall, but the floor was daintily if unevenly paved with shells of different tints and sizes, while the walls were tapestried with catkins. In the middle of the room stood a monster mushroom, serving as a table, with big toadstools to match on either side for chairs. The lighting was supplied by a will-o’-the-wisp, which hovered about near the ceiling till called for, when it would settle wherever it was needed. Philomène accepted the seat offered her on one of the toadstools, while the little man went to a hollow, mossgrown tree-stump in a corner of the room, and began to look for something inside it.

“You must excuse my going to the cupboard and waiting upon myself,” he remarked. “I do keep a tom-tit, but the weather was so fine that I thought it only fair to give him an afternoon out, so I must lay my own tea.” He placed one half of a walnut-shell, a few clover blossoms, and a scrap of honey-comb upon the mushroom table, and sat down on the other toadstool, opposite to his guest.

“If you have not already had your tea,” he continued, “I can recommend this dew, which is of the very finest quality, and kept cool by means of an icicle. I get my honey from an excellent firm, Buzz, Bumble and Buzz, Limited, and the clover was picked this morning. Plain fare, my dear, for this luxury-loving age, but thoroughly wholesome, I assure you. Have some?”

“I have had my tea already, thank you,” said Philomène, “but I do like the sweet ends of clover very much, if you could spare me one flower.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the mannikin, and he handed her two, one white and one pink.

“Would you mind telling me, please,” began Philomène, “what you meant just now by speaking about green ribbons? Whose green ribbons?”

“Yours, of course,” said the little man. “I shouldn’t need any. If it hadn’t been for those green ribbons on your christening robe, my young friend, you wouldn’t be sitting here now. It is only the children that have worn green ribbons at their christening who can see the fairies at all.”

“Then you really, really are a fairy?” cried Philomène.

“Should I be living in this house and eating these things if I weren’t?” retorted her host. “I am a fairy, and my name is Sweet William.”

“Am I to call you that?” asked Philomène, doubtfully.

She could not help feeling that the name sounded very affectionate, and that it might be forward for her to use it upon so short an acquaintance.

“I don’t know what else you’re to call me,” said the little man, “it strikes me as a very good name of its kind. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I am the fairies’ land- and house-agent for this garden; I chose it for various reasons, partly so as to be near you, for it is the business of the fairies to look after lonely children.”

“I suppose I ought to thank him,” thought Philomène, feeling painfully shy, but Sweet William rattled on and left her no time.

“You have probably no idea how much work even a small garden like this entails. I have to attend to the housing of all the live creatures, for one thing, the bees and snails and birds and caterpillars and so on. The flowers are not troublesome, for they stay in one place for quite a long time, but the spiders, for instance, are for ever moving house.”

“It must be very interesting work,” said Philomène politely. She had often heard people make this remark to her father.

“Not bad,” said Sweet William, “if one keeps one’s eyes and ears open. From being the agent in a big garden, just about a hundred and fifty years ago, I once pieced together a whole love-story. It was an old manor-house, and had a very fine garden.”

“That is the sort of place I should love to live in,” said Philomène, “with oriel windows and avenues and things.”

“It is a modern failing to find fault with one’s surroundings,” said Sweet William pompously, “and young people are especially prone to it. As I was saying when you interrupted me, it was a fine garden. The family was very old and very proud, and they kept a peacock on the terrace. On one side of the lawn ran a green walk and a clipped yew-hedge, and it was here that my lovers used to walk, up and down, up and down, at sunset. The hedge overheard every word of what they said, for you see, being a hedge he could not very well help eavesdropping. Well, one day they had to say good-bye, and he went away and left her very sad, and I got to know all about that part of it from a red rose, which he had picked that last evening, and the girl had pressed the rose in a big book, and every day she would sit and read in the book, and would look at the page where the red rose lay. ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his.’ The rose told me that she had grown desperately tired of having nothing but this one sentence to read, but the girl never seemed to tire of it. Then at last her lover came back for her, and they went away together to the little harbour near by, and one of Mother Carey’s chickens told me that they were married in the church on the cliff. After that I heard no more of them for some time, till one day I chanced to pick up a sea-shell on the beach near the harbour. I had had no tidings of the mer-folk for ever such a long while, so I put the shell to my ear and let the sea tell me some, and amongst other things it told me about those two, and how they had taken ship for the south. The last news I had of them was from the wind, for he is such a great traveller that he seldom loses sight of people, but the worst of him is that like most travellers he is always in a hurry, so he could only stop to tell me that he had seen them last in another garden, walking up and down an avenue of cypresses with bits of broken statues on either side; only he was not holding her hand this time, for she was carrying a white bundle in her arms. The wind had not waited to find out its precise nature, but he had overheard a few of their remarks as he went by, and would you believe it, they were just exactly the same as those which the yew-hedge had repeated to me.”

“There is a nice big cypress tree at the Cushats,” said Philomène, “but I have never seen a whole avenue of them. I wish I could. Oh, Sweet William, I do get so bored sometimes living in a little house with a little garden, and nothing exciting happening all day long.”

“Boredom,” said Sweet William, “is a modern complaint to which the young are peculiarly prone.”

“I wish he would call something an ancient complaint to which old people were prone,” thought Philomène. “And I’m sure it’s just as bad to be always finding fault with the times in which one lives as with the house.” But out loud she only said, “And may I come here sometimes, please, and will you tell me a few more stories? Godmother tells me beautiful stories which she makes up as she goes along, but she has so many people to visit and so many things to do that I cannot see her very often, and I know all my books nearly by heart, and Nurse can only tell stories about the families she was with before she came to me, and all those children seem to have been so dull and good.”

“In these days,” replied Sweet William, “next to nothing can be done without first passing examinations, so if you are willing to come here to-morrow afternoon at about this time by a reliable clock (don’t go by the nursery clock, for it is not very well regulated), I will set you an examination paper all about fairies and fairyland. If you do well in it, that is to say if your marks add up to 75 per cent, you shall have a prize.”

“What will the prize be?” asked Philomène, shyly.

“A latchkey just like mine, so that you can let yourself in, whether I am at home or not. And now,” said Sweet William rising, “I really must be off. I have a lot of extra work in the spring time, with all the swallows coming home.”

Philomène rose also, and the little door swung open in the wall. She stepped out upon the path, and the sunlight dazzled her, so that she had to shade her eyes with her hand. “I am very glad to have met you, and I will certainly come again to-morrow,” she was just beginning to say, when she noticed that Sweet William was gone. For a minute she stood and stared at the key-hole, which stared back at her. A warm west wind went past her, the blackbird was still singing his heart out in the lilac bush, and the air was full of the fragrance of green and growing things. At her feet lay the dandelion stalk.

Philomène picked up her watering-can and ran with it up the iron staircase into the schoolroom, where she found Nurse asleep in her favourite basket chair. “Oh, Nurse, do wake up, dear good old Nurse,” she called out eagerly, “and tell me who put green ribbons on to my christening dress!”

“Bless the child,” returned Nurse drowsily, “who ever has been talking that nonsense to you? It was your godmother, and a heathenish fancy I thought it too at the time. And there’s no call for you to be speaking so loud either that I can see; I wasn’t asleep, I was only resting my eyes.”

CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE HEROINE DISTINGUISHES HERSELF

The next day seemed a long time in coming, but come it did. So did Miss Mills. Miss Mills was young and pretty, and she thought herself even prettier than she was. During the past year or two, she had been giving daily lessons to Philomène, but she was not fond of teaching, and her temper was uncertain.

“Tell me at once,” she said sharply, as the lesson dragged itself towards its close, “what did Edwin and Morcar do?”

“They ruled with rods of iron,” responded Philomène absently.

“You are not attending properly, child,” said Miss Mills, “or you would not repeat things parrot-fashion out of the book in that way. Do you suppose that one took the poker and the other the tongs? And, you know, you were very careless too about reciting your psalm this morning, saying that the trees of the Lord were full of soup, when you know perfectly well that they aren’t any such thing. What has come over you? Take down your work for to-morrow.”

It was no wonder that Philomène found it difficult to attend to her lessons that day, for she could think of little else than the coming examination, and when tea at last appeared she felt too much excited to eat.

“Now don’t begin to be faddy, Miss, like Master Harold,” said Nurse.

“Who was Master Harold?” asked Philomène, “he wasn’t one of the Ruthven-Smiths, was he?”

“No,” said Nurse, “he was one of their cousins, and he came to stay with them, and a mighty long visit he paid too. I never did like him from the first moment I set eyes on him; he was all fads and fancies, and one day, I remember, he made my poor dear little Miss Maisie cry by telling her that her legs looked like two snakes that had swallowed oranges, and they were no fatter than his own in the middle, for that matter. But if you won’t get along with your tea, Miss, you had better say grace, and run into the garden.”

Outside the afternoon’s sad yellow sunlight lay all across the lawn; it awoke diamond flashes in the wall, and even gilded the handle of the pump. The metallic notes of the starlings were heard on every side, and London was doing its best to forget that it was the largest pile of brick and mortar in the world. Philomène ran to her own garden and up its little pathway. A great fear was at her heart lest yesterday’s experience should prove to have been a make-up also, and nothing more, like Mrs Handy and the rest. Tremblingly she tapped upon the wall, and prompt to her signal came the sound of a step inside, and the turning of the key in the key-hole. Sweet William stood before her in his green suit, with the red and white cockade in his hat.

“Come in,” said he in his delicate high-pitched voice, “everything is quite ready.”

Philomène entered, and the catkin tapestries rustled in the draught of the closing door. The little room looked cool and friendly. On the giant mushroom lay a packet of satin-smooth lily petals, a swan’s quill pen, and two snails’ shells, one filled with red and the other with violet ink, distilled from red roses and from violets. There was also a little pad of moss upon which to dry the pen. Philomène sat down upon the nearest toadstool.

“Well,” said Sweet William pleasantly, “have you been reading up much for the examination?”

“No, not much,” returned Philomène, “I really know all that’s in my books already, but I have been trying to remember everything I ever heard about the fairies.”

“You see,” said Sweet William, “the Good People do not like letting children into their secrets who have not first taken the trouble to find out all they can about us for themselves. Now we had better begin, and here are the questions. Number your pages, and pin them together with this thorn when you have finished writing. There is a sun-dial in the next garden, and he has promised to send word when the time is up.”

For the next hour Philomène wrote busily; she did not even look round when Sweet William opened a door opposite to that by which she herself had entered, and spoke to someone outside.

“It was a grasshopper,” said Sweet William, “and he came to say that the hour is over. Poor fellow, he spends his time trying to reach the sun by high hops, and his friend the dial keeps on assuring him that it is of no use, but the grasshopper will not believe him. He thinks it is only that the dial has lost heart and got depressed, from having had “Art is long and time is fleeting” written across him for so many years.”

Philomène was pinning her papers together. “I have done my best,” said she, with a threatening of tears in her voice, “but I am afraid it won’t be prize-standard.”

“Well, let us see,” said Sweet William encouragingly, as he took the neatly written sheets into his hands, “I will read aloud the questions and what you have written, correcting your mistakes as I go along, and then we will add up the marks. Perhaps you would like some refreshments after all that hard work; here are some bee-bread and purest rainwater.” So saying, Sweet William settled himself comfortably upon his stool, dipped his pen into the red ink, and began.

“‘I. Give the names of the King and Queen of Fairyland, of the King’s favourite page, and of the Queen’s four chief attendant elves.’

“‘Oberon, Titania, Puck, Master Mustardseed, Master Peasblossom, Master Cobweb, Master Moth.’

“Perfectly correct. The maximum for that is six marks; half a mark for the King’s name, half a mark for the Queen’s, and a whole mark for each of the five elves. Now then:

“‘II. What events do you connect with the following dates; April 30th, June 23rd, October 31st, and December 24?’

“‘April 30th is the Walpurgis Night, when the witches dance on the top of a mountain called the Brocken. June 23rd is midsummer eve, when all the goblins and sprites are abroad, and you light fires to keep them at a distance; sometimes also you hang up a hatchet in a wood, so that they can hew themselves timber if they will. On December 24th animals and all lifeless things are able to speak.’

“I see you have left out October 31st. Didn’t you know it? It is the great feast of Samhain, or of All Fairies.”

“It is All Hallows’ Eve with us,” replied Philomène innocently, and then remembered with a pang that fairies cannot bear the sound of church bells, because it reminds them of a power that is stronger than their strongest magic. “So I do not suppose they like the Saints much either,” she reflected ruefully.

“Well, it is All Fairies’ with us, at any rate,” said Sweet William, speaking rather fast, “which makes three marks out of a maximum of four for the second question. Now for the third.

“‘III. Write all you know, (A) about Leprechauns; (B) about Brownies.’

“‘(A). Leprechauns are little men dressed all in green, who generally live in Ireland; at least I have never heard of their living anywhere else. They are the fairies’ cobblers, and are kept very busy because the fairies dance so much that they wear out any number of shoes. They also know where all the crocks of gold and other hidden treasures are kept, and if you find a leprechaun, and don’t take your eyes off him, he is obliged to give you anything you want, but he tries to startle you and make you look away, and then you have lost your power over him, unless you can catch him again. The best thing to do is to take him to running water, for he is very much afraid of that, and will promise you anything rather than stay near it.’

“‘(B) Brownies are little men who come into houses during the night, or very early in the morning before anyone is up, and sweep and dust and lay the fires, and make themselves very useful. You may put a bowl of bread and milk for them, or even cream, if you want to show that you are grateful, but you must never offer them new suits of clothes. Some people have caught sight of them, and seen how ragged their coats were, and have made new clothes for them, and left these near the bread and milk, but when the brownies saw that they went away, and never came back again. I suppose it offends them.’

“Quite right. You have full marks for that question, five for A and five for B. That makes the whole ten for the third question.

“‘IV. Write short notes on:—fairy ring; fairy-gold; witch-apples; blackthorn; the rainbow.’

“‘A fairy ring is a circle of teeny mushrooms in the grass, and it marks the place where the fairies have been dancing over-night. If you should ever happen to fall from a height down into the middle of one of these rings, you would not hurt yourself, not even if you fell from the clouds.

“‘Fairy gold is not very satisfactory, for when mortals touch it, it all turns into withered leaves.

“‘Witch-apples are very dangerous things, for if a witch gives you an apple, and you eat it, it makes you restless ever after, so that you are never able to settle down to anything again.

“‘Blackthorn is the fairies’ tree, and they do not like its being picked by us, or brought into our houses. That is why some people say that it is unlucky to bring home blackthorn after a country walk, and other people get a little mixed and think that it is hawthorn which is unlucky, but it isn’t.’

“Ah! I see you have left out the rainbow. Do you mean to tell me you don’t know what a rainbow is for?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Philomène with some hesitation; Noah was in her mind, but she fancied that Sweet William might find him as little acceptable as the Saints. She therefore determined to run no risks this time.

“It is the triumphal arch,” explained Sweet William, “which is thrown up whenever the fairy queen is expected to pass that way.”

“I never heard that before,” said Philomène, “and I like the idea very much (though I feel quite sure Nurse wouldn’t),” she added to herself.

“It isn’t an idea,” retorted Sweet William rather huffily, “it is a custom. Let me see, that makes four out of five marks for the fourth question,” he continued, “and now for number five.

“‘V. Copy three bars of music from the song, either of a mermaid, or of the Lorelei.’

“Five marks for that question. But I see you have left it out altogether?”

“I have never had a chance of hearing the Lorelei,” answered Philomène, “for no one has ever taken me to the Rhine, and I have not heard any mermaids either, though the Cushats is near the sea.”

“Well, perhaps it was not quite a fair question,” said Sweet William, “but never mind, you have done very well so far, and you can well afford to lose five marks at this stage. Let us see what you have made of number six.

“‘VI. Complete the following quotations, and state if possible, in what work of which author each occurs.

(A) All under the sun belongs to men;

(B) Where the bee sucks, there lurk I.

(A) And all under the moon to the fairies.

From Mrs Ewing’s “Amelia and the Dwarfs.”

(B) In a cowslip’s bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat’s back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.’

From Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest.’

“Very good indeed. Two marks for (A) and three for (B), which makes five. You have full marks for that question. You must have a good memory.

“‘VII. (A). When did toads not turn into what, and if not, why not, and what did they turn into?’

“‘(B). Supposing yourself to be escaping from an enchanter’s dwelling, what three articles would be likely to prove of the most use to you, and why?’

“‘(A). In the story of “Eliza and the Eleven Swans,” out of Hans Andersen, the wicked stepmother throws toads into Eliza’s bath, wishing to poison her. The toads were so ugly that they could not turn into roses, which they would like to have done, and which less ugly creatures might have been able to do, but they did manage to turn into poppies, for Eliza was so good that they could not harm her. Miss Mills says toads are not really poisonous.’

“‘(B). I should take with me’ (it would have been better to say,—If I were escaping from an enchanter’s dwelling I should take with me—always repeat your question in your answer, it saves the examiner trouble,) ‘I should take with me a comb, a flower-pot and a tumbler of water, because when the enchanter pursues you, you can throw the comb behind you, and it turns into a ridge of mountains, and he has to waste time going back and fetching a ladder so as to be able to climb up them; later you can throw the flower-pot behind you which turns into a forest, so that the enchanter has to turn back again and fetch a hatchet to cut down the trees; afterwards you can throw the glass of water behind you, which turns into a lake, so that he has first to get a boat. By that time you have generally arrived at your own kingdom or wherever else you want to go.’

“Yes, that is very well answered. You get full marks for that question also, two and a half for (A), and two and a half for (B). Now there is only number eight left.

“‘VIII. Write in note form, and as concisely as possible, any story out of Grimm’s fairy-tales.’

“I see you have chosen the story of the flounder.

“‘Fisherman catches flounder. Flounder owns to being a prince; is let go. Fisherman’s wife annoyed at wasted opportunity. Fisherman goes back to beach, finds flounder, states wish. Fisherman’s hovel vanishes, nice cottage instead. Fortnight later fisherman’s wife grumbles. Fisherman returns to flounder, flounder rather cross. Cottage disappears, stone castle instead. After few days fisherman’s wife grumbles again, sends husband back to flounder. Flounder crosser. Sea rough. However, castle vanishes, king’s palace instead. Fisherman goes home to find wife already discontented because only queen, not empress. Has to return to beach. Flounder angry. Sea very rough. King’s palace disappears, emperor’s palace comes instead. Wife says she wants to be Pope, sends husband back to beach. Flounder very angry. Sea stormy. Emperor’s palace goes, Pope’s palace comes. Sunrise next morning. Wife sees it, says she wants to be able to make the sun rise. Fisherman returns to seashore. Sea running mountains high. No flounder, voice only. Fisherman returns to find old hovel back again.’

“The maximum there is ten marks,” Sweet William said, after he had finished reading the notes aloud, “and you have remembered the story well, all but the rhyme.”

“I did remember the rhyme though,” said Philomène eagerly, “and I had meant to add it, but just then the grasshopper came. The first time the fisherman says:—

‘Flounder, flounder in the sea,

Come, I pray, and talk with me,

For my wife, Dame Isabel,

Sent me here a tale to tell.’

And all the other times he says:—

‘For my wife, Dame Isabel,

Wishes what I fear to tell.’”

“Capital!” exclaimed Sweet William with enthusiasm, “Philomène rightly named, beloved of the fairies! It is not often we have the good luck to come across such a child. Now we will add up the marks. Six for the first question, three for the second, ten for the third, four for the fourth, none for the fifth, five for the sixth, five for the seventh, ten for the eighth. That makes forty-three out of fifty, which is eighty-six per cent. I congratulate you, my dear, and have much pleasure in presenting you with a latchkey, exactly like my own.”

Philomène’s face lit up, her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled, but “Thank you very much” was all she said as she took the key and slipped it into her pocket.

“I expect it will be a treat for you to come out here now and again,” said Sweet William, watching her closely, “not indeed that there isn’t plenty to amuse you indoors.”

“Not indoors at home,” said Philomène, decidedly, “Daddy is out nearly all day, and though Nurse and Miss Mills are very kind and all that, they are neither of them any good at fairy things, or at plays, or at story-telling. It seems to me it is often very dull at home.”

“The very young,” remarked Sweet William, gazing into space, “and more particularly the young of the present day, are apt to condemn the place in which they live because they are themselves too stupid to find out its attractions. Do you follow me?”

“I can’t very well help following you,” said Philomène, almost losing her temper, “but if you lived at Sideview yourself, perhaps you would not find it so very amusing either. Even Daddy says it is an uninteresting little house, though of course I try to be contented so as to please him, but it is not at all so easy as you make out. It isn’t a bit like the ‘House of Surprises’ in the story-book.”

“A good many surprising things go on in it, notwithstanding,” retorted Sweet William, “as Master Mustardseed could very well tell you, if you only had the sense to listen to him a bit when you are alone together.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand you about Master Mustardseed,” said Philomène, “why should I need to be alone with him specially?”

“Because,” replied Sweet William calmly, “he is every bit as much a fairy as I am.”

“A fairy! What fairy?” cried Philomène, jumping off the stool in her excitement.

“What fairy? Why, Master Mustardseed, of course. Haven’t you been writing about him only this very afternoon? Just you listen to a piece of good advice. When next you are left alone for any length of time, get as near as ever you can to his cage. And now good-bye for the present, for I am still up to my eyes in work.”

“Goodbye,” said Philomène, and she felt in her pocket to make sure that the key was still there.

CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH THE HEROINE TAKES ADVICE

Philomène ran down the garden walk, her mind in a turmoil. Queen Mab was trotting to meet her along the path, and as soon as she caught sight of her pet, she knelt down on the gravel and held out her arms to it. “O Queen Mab, Queen Mab,” she cried, “I am so happy! It seems it doesn’t matter being ordinary, if only the Good People love one.” The cat had scrambled upon her lap in an instant, and was rubbing a white velvety head against her arm, and licking her hand with a little tongue as rough as it was red. Philomène carried her pussy into the schoolroom, and set it down on the bearskin hearth-rug; then she glanced curiously at the canary in his cage, but he was pecking at the seeds in his seed-trough, and took no notice of her.

Before nightfall it rained. Nurse said it was because Lilian Augusta had sung “Summer suns are glowing” that morning, which, she declared, invariably brought on wet weather. The next day it went on raining, but despite the downpour Miss Mills happened to be in a good humour, and this was just as well, for it was the turn of what Philomène called “the little speckled book,” and it is not easy to give your attention to little speckled books when your thoughts are full of fairies. “The World and All About It” was a very plump little volume, and the squatness of its figure was only equalled by the omniscience of its author. It explained at the beginning who had made the world and why; it gave the exact date for the invention of pottery, and described the best way of handling chopsticks. Philomène had just been learning all about the chameleon, and of how by changing its colour it escapes the notice of its enemies.

“Does not this show the care which Providence takes of all its creatures?” demanded Miss Mills.

“I suppose so,” replied Philomène, thoughtfully.

“Don’t say, ‘I suppose so,’” returned Miss Mills, “the answer in the book is Yes.” But the rebuke was given gently and with a smile, and Philomène was gladder than ever of this easy-going mood when it came to the Scripture lesson, which was her weekly nightmare. For when Miss Mills taught the Scriptures she succeeded in making them as dry as the biscuit which the Red Queen gave to Alice. “Thirst quenched, I hope?” said the Red Queen, and happily did not wait for an answer.

Nurse declined to venture out of doors that day, and an interview with Master Mustardseed was impossible, so when lessons were over Philomène went down to the kitchen to help Lilian Augusta grate the chocolate for a pudding. She found her singing to herself, “And now this holy day is drawing to its end.” “But I don’t see that it is so very holy,” reflected Philomène, “and it isn’t anywhere near its end either. Nurse says it is just out of contrariness that Lilian Augusta likes to sing, “The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended” while she is washing up the breakfast things, and “When morning gilds the skies” over the tea-things, but then I think Nurse is sometimes very cross to Lilian Augusta, and perhaps she doesn’t mean all she sings.”

Lilian Augusta and Philomène were good friends, and had quarrelled only twice, once when the first canary had been allowed to make its escape, and another time on Queen Mab’s account. Lilian Augusta had no love for cats, and she was not pleased therefore when after some fruitless advertising it was settled that Queen Mab should become a member of the household. Philomène, bent on making peace, had carried her new pet into the kitchen and had placed it on the table.

“You know, Lilian Augusta,” she said coaxingly, “we really couldn’t have put such a little, little cat out into the street again, could we? Only see how small it is, and who would have fed it?”

“God, I suppose, Miss,” replied Lilian Augusta unmoved, as she measured out the curry-powder. But Philomène would not hear of this.

“Poor Pussy!” she exclaimed resentfully, “poor, poor Pussy!” And snatching up Queen Mab she walked straight out of the kitchen and did not re-visit it that day. Lilian Augusta, however, had grown first indifferent to the white cat, and then fond of it, for Queen Mab had pretty endearing ways, besides which, devotion to Philomène was at all times a passport to the faithful servant’s good opinion.

For several days the steady rain continued; gardeners rejoiced, other people grumbled. Philomène consoled herself with an occasional peep at her tall silver savings-box, in which she now treasured her latchkey. This savings-box of hers was never looked at, for her father wished her to do as she pleased with her pocket-money, and she had therefore chosen it as a hiding-place for the key. On these wet days, when she could not play in the garden, it was a comfort merely to look at the key through the slit in the lid of the box. Towards the end of the week the rain abated, though it did not stop altogether. People were beginning to cheer up all round, excepting, of course, the gardeners, who said that the soil was sodden, and that the rain had brought the slugs.

Nurse laid aside the pinafore she had been making, and shut her work-box with a snap. “I want to get some insertion,” she announced, “the same as is on your other pinafores. I must see if I can match it,”

“Am I to come too, Nurse?” inquired Philomène anxiously.

“I don’t see the necessity, Miss. You had your walk this morning. You had better stay in and meet your father when he comes home, I should say. He might be back within the next hour.”

Philomène breathed more freely. “I would ask Lilian Augusta to do that much shopping for me,” continued Nurse, “but it’s her time off to-day, and what’s more she never can match things, not so much as a bit of binding. I’m sure it’s very good of the Lord to make me as patient as I am with Lilian Augusta every day of my life.”

No sooner had the hall-door banged downstairs than Master Mustardseed burst into song, so full of joyous trills and turns and crushing-notes, that someone who knew no better might have supposed he was merely showing what difficult music he could contrive to sing if he gave his mind to it. Philomène cautiously put two fingers through the bars of his cage, and at that the canary stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun, cocked his little green head on one side, and perched upon her hand. Then he spoke in a shrill, small voice,

“No need to introduce myself, I suppose?” he said gaily. His manner was good-humoured and easy, and Philomène thought, rightly enough, that he would prove far slower to take offence than her friend the land-agent.

“No,” she said, “Sweet William has told me that Master Mustardseed is really your name; and oh! you cannot think what a difference it has made to me during lesson time to feel that there is a real fairy in the schoolroom. I used to think sometimes, when it was quiet and getting late, that if I listened I might hear my toys talking, as they do in nearly all the story-books, but that never came to anything. Perhaps I didn’t wait long enough, or perhaps they knew I was listening.”

“The story-books are not always as accurate on that point as they ought to be,” replied the canary, “it is really not at all so easy to hear toys talk as they make out. To begin with, the house has to be quite empty; there must be no daylight in the room, only firelight or moonlight; and there must be no time going on.”

“How could that be managed?” asked Philomène, as Master Mustardseed paused to take breath, for he spoke nearly as fast as he sang.

“The clock must have stopped,” said Master Mustardseed, “so you see, it is rather a difficult matter first and last. You have no idea, by the way, what confusion you caused in the dolls’ house the other day by making the dolls play at a wedding.”

“I am sorry if I upset them,” said Philomène in distress, “I thought I should like to have a wedding, because I had read in my history lesson that morning about King Louis XII. of France, and how he over-ate himself at his own wedding-banquet when he married Mary Tudor, and he died, and she was ever so pleased, and went quickly and married someone else.”

“I daresay,” said Master Mustardseed, laughing, “but you married two dolls who did not in the least want to marry each other, poor things, and what was worse, the mistress of the house had invited the Gollywog and the Father Christmas to lunch, and she had to tell them not to come, as there were not enough plates to go round. How would you like to have to do that if you were a hostess? The dolls’ own lives are constantly being interrupted and interfered with by those who play with them, but of course I see that it cannot be helped, and it isn’t your fault. It is the fault of whoever made them dolls.”

“I will look very hard at them next time I want to play,” said Philomène remorsefully, “and perhaps I shall see from the expression on their faces whether they have a funeral or a party or anything of their own fixed for that day. Poor dears, I hope they don’t hate me. But, oh please, will you tell me something about yourself now, and why you are here?”

“Well, as you have already heard,” replied the canary, “I am Master Mustardseed, one of the fairy queen’s four favourite pages, so you made a remarkably good shot at my name. As for why I am here—well, have you never heard that once every hundred years fairies have to turn into animals for a year and a day, and if they are killed during that time, so much the worse for them, for you see, we haven’t what you call souls. However, if we survive that year and that day, we can go back to Fairyland for another hundred years. Now my friend and brother page, Master Moth, of whom I daresay you have heard, had to put in his time before my turn came, and he lived with you as your first canary; but when his year was over he flew away, and knowing that I had shortly to make up my mind what to change into myself, he recommended me to come here, saying that you were a very kind little mistress, and that I might go farther and fare worse. That is why I came, and as for my staying longer than a year and a day, why, my dear, before I left Fairyland I played a prank on the Man in the Moon. He had come to court for the first time, and we pages thought him something of a country cousin. You see, he did not know anything at all about court etiquette, and made absurd mistakes. I thought out the prank all by myself, for I did not want Puck or Moth or Cobweb or Peasblossom to know anything about it; it does not do to have too many people in a secret. All would have gone off well enough, had not the Man in the Moon complained to headquarters. It appears he cannot take a joke; and indeed I might have guessed as much, for I expect you have noticed even at this distance what a wry face he can make. The king and queen were so much displeased that they banished me from court for three years, and I thought I had much better stay on here. But if one day I leave you, you must not be sorry, for I shall only have flown back to Fairyland.”

“Do many of the fairies turn into song-birds?” asked Philomène.

“Yes, a good many of them,” replied Master Mustardseed, “and the court musician always turns into a nightingale. As for the fairies who dislike the bother of housekeeping, they become cuckoos, and lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, which saves them a lot of trouble. Brownies become bees and ants, for they cannot bear to be idle, and a court-lady as often as not turns into a butterfly or humming-bird for the sake of the fine clothes.”

“Have you ever heard the Lorelei sing?” inquired Philomène, “I had to leave out the question about her in Sweet William’s examination paper.”

“No,” replied Master Mustardseed decidedly, “I have always avoided the lady. You know, I suppose, what it is that she sings for? The boatmen hear her, and listen and listen, and watch her combing her shimmering hair, and forget to steer their boats, so that they are sucked down into the whirlpools of the Rhine. The gnomes never did mortals a worse turn than when they made that golden comb for her, and when all’s said and done her hair is no prettier than your own godmother’s. But don’t let’s talk about her any more; I know plenty of stories about much nicer people. Perhaps you would like to hear one right away. Stop me if I talk too fast; Moth says it is a failing of mine.”

CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH MASTER MUSTARDSEED TELLS HIS STORY

“In a mean, dingy house in the midst of a great city, there once lived a cobbler and his apprentice, and together with them in that same house there also lived a certain evil and malicious boggart. Now a boggart is just the opposite of a brownie, for while a brownie tidies and sweeps and puts things to rights, a boggart only works mischief and makes confusion. He would break the crockery, and mislay the tools in the workshop, and once he dropped so much salt into the soup that the cobbler lay awake half the night with thirst. Now the cobbler, who was a harsh, unreasonable man, suspected his apprentice of these pranks, and soon took him roughly to task.

“Master,” said the apprentice, “you do me wrong. It is not I who have done you this harm, but a mannikin in tattered clothes and a peaked cap. It must be that we are living under one roof with a boggart, for more than once have I seen him at his tricks when twilight fell.”

But the cobbler would not believe a word of what the apprentice said, for he himself had never set eyes on the boggart, and though one day the apprentice pointed him out, not even then could he catch so much as a glimpse of him. It is true that the cobbler’s yellow cat, who lay stretched upon the hearth, could see the imp plainly enough with her green and glimmering eyes, but then it was not in her power to say so, nor to put in a good word for the apprentice.

“You had better stop making game of me,” said the angry cobbler, each time that a fresh mishap occurred, “for my temper is but a short one, and I am growing tired of your fool’s tricks, and of your fool’s tales too, for that matter, about boggarts and what not, so mark my words, and mend your ways.”

Now one evening as the cobbler sat stitching at a neighbour’s shoes, he said to the apprentice, “I am ready for my supper. Go and get me the flitch of bacon from the corner cupboard.” But when the apprentice opened the cupboard door, the bacon was nowhere to be seen.

“Master, it is gone!” he cried, “I fear the boggart has played you another trick, and this time it is an ill turn indeed!”

“The boggart! The boggart! What’s all this talk of boggarts?” screamed the cobbler, “so I have been teaching my trade to a thief, have I? You’re a fine fellow to keep as an apprentice, eating a poor man out of house and home! Get you gone from my door, or you shall have blows from me, and not words alone.”

Again the apprentice tried to defend himself, but his master would not listen, so he sadly put together his few belongings in a knapsack, and set out upon his travels, with none to wish him well save only his friend the yellow cat, who came and rubbed herself against his legs before the house-door closed behind him. All night he paced the streets disconsolate, and at dawn when the city gates stood open he set forth upon the king’s highway.

As dusk fell, he entered a wild, bleak hill country, and he had not gone far upon the lonely road when he heard a voice singing a plaintive refrain. Eagerly he hurried onwards, wondering who the wayfarer might be, but soon the singing ceased, and a sound of weeping took its place. Then the apprentice caught sight of a maiden seated upon the grassy bank by the roadside. She was beautifully dressed in silks and jewels, but briers clung to her rich trailing robes, and the blustering wind had disordered her golden tresses.

“Madam,” said the apprentice, “if my poor services may assist you, they are at your command.”

“I thank you with all my heart,” said she, “let us travel on together and seek a night’s lodging. But for you I should have been left friendless upon this waste hillside.” So together they took the road again, and journeyed on into the mountains.

“I am a king’s daughter,” said the maiden, “and my father and mother have accused me of witchcraft, and have driven me from my home.”

“I too have been driven away on an unjust charge,” said the apprentice, “and now I know not how I may earn my bread, for my master the cobbler would not finish teaching me my trade.” After that they both fell silent, for they were weary and sad at heart.

Now when they had gone some considerable distance, they overtook a shepherd who was driving home his flock, and of him they begged a night’s shelter.

“Come with me to my goodwife,” the kindly shepherd made reply, “and we will do all in our power to serve you both.” So saying he guided them to the sheltered hollow where his cottage stood. His wife came to greet him at the doorway, and when she saw the strangers she welcomed them also. In the kitchen a bright fire was burning, and supper was on the table, broth, and bread, and a bowl of porridge. Far back in a shadowy corner of the room sat an old, old woman, toothless and hairless, bent and shrunken with her years.

“That,” said the shepherd, “is my grandmother, and she is reputed one of the wisest women in the countryside, but she is aged and weak, and speaks but seldom.”

Now as soon as supper was ended, the company drew around the fire, and the shepherd begged his guests to relate the story of their wanderings.

“My father is a mighty king,” the princess made answer, “and dwells in a city many leagues distant. Not long ago a strange series of misfortunes befell us. One night as I stood by my window and looked out upon the palace garden, I saw that a fairy was pillaging the blossom of the king’s favourite almond-tree, and I called in haste to my waiting-woman, and pointed the strange sight out to her, but she protested that she could see nothing, and the next morning she went and told my parents what had taken place. The night following I stood again by my window, looking out upon the terrace, and this time I saw a fairy luring away the queen’s favourite peacock. Again I called to my waiting-woman, for I was afraid, but again she declared that she could see nothing. The next morning the faithless woman went once more to my parents, and told them what had befallen, and this time she even dared assure them that I must be a witch, for had there indeed been a fairy in the castle she would certainly have seen it as well as myself. At first my parents were unwilling to credit her charge, for, said the king my father, the almond-tree had most assuredly been plundered, though none knew by whom, and, said the queen my mother, that the peacock was lost there could be no doubt. Nevertheless, they were both much disturbed, and bade the woman watch me narrowly. Now as evening fell I was sitting in my bower, when all at once I heard a sound behind me as of breaking flax, and turning round I saw a fairy standing in the middle of my room, breaking the flax that hung upon my golden spinning-wheel. Then I became frightened, and pointed her out to my waiting-woman, but again she said she saw nothing. The next day when my parents heard what had happened, they summoned me to their presence and questioned me, and I could but affirm that each time I had seen a fairy, though my waiting-woman had seen none. Now the king my father lives in great dread of witches and their charms, and forthwith he charged me with witchcraft, because I saw things that were not good to see, and which were hidden from other folk, and when my mother pleaded for me he would not listen, but said that there was a spell upon the palace and that I must go, or else no one could tell what might come of it, and he sent me away. But indeed, good people, I am no witch, yet the fairies I did most assuredly see, three several times.”

After that the apprentice also told his story, and how the cobbler had blamed him for the boggart’s pranks, and had driven him out. “Yet I am unjustly accused,” said he, “for I myself saw the boggart at his work, not once nor twice.”

“These are the strangest tales that ever I heard!” cried the shepherd.

“The old grandmother is learned in fairy lore,” added his wife; “it may be that she can solve the riddle.” When she heard that, the princess rose, and went to the dark corner where the old crone sat, and knelt down beside her.

“Tell me, I pray you, good mother,” said she, “how comes it that this stranger and I both saw the fairies where others saw none?” But the old crone only blinked at her with dull eyes, and made no reply.

“It is a king’s daughter who kneels to you, granddame,” cried the shepherd, “will you not give her an answer?”

“A peaked cap and fernseed,” muttered the old hag, “the boggart put on his peaked cap, and the fairies carried fernseed.”

“But whoever carries fernseed becomes invisible,” said the princess, “and in spite of that I saw them.”

“Over those who are born on an Ember Day neither a cap of darkness nor the fairies’ fern itself has any power,” said the crone; “both of you must have been born in one of the four Ember Weeks.” And her voice died away into indistinct mumblings.

“It is a dower that none need envy,” quoth the apprentice, and the princess sighed in answer.

Now on the following morning the shepherd and his wife urged the princess to remain with them, and she joyfully consented. “I will not be a burden to you,” said she, “for I can spin, and I will learn to do all manner of things about the house, and will take care of the old grandmother.”

But the apprentice set out upon his travels again, and this time he felt even sadder than on the previous day, for it went to his heart to part from the princess, whom already he loved for her fair face and gentle ways. After journeying for some distance he left the hills behind him, and at noon he entered a deep and shady wood. There, in a mossy glade, seated upon a bank of primroses, he caught sight of a little man dressed all in green, who was busily mending shoes. But as the apprentice drew nearer, the mannikin flung aside his work, and snatching up a green cap with a sprig of fern in the brim, he set it upon his head.

“That much trouble you might have spared yourself,” laughed the apprentice, “for I was born on an Ember Day, they tell me.”

“Is that so?” said the mannikin, and he resumed his cobbling.

“And who may you be?” asked the apprentice.

“I am the fairies’ cobbler,” replied the little green man.

“Then I pray you teach me my trade,” said the apprentice, “for I am a cobbler’s apprentice, but I have not served my full time, since my master has sent me away on a wrongful charge.”

“Where did your master live?” asked the mannikin.

“Over the hills yonder,” replied the apprentice pointing, but when he turned round again the fairies’ cobbler was nowhere to be seen. On the instant he felt himself pelted by a shower of acorns from above, and looking up he saw a squirrel, perched among the oak boughs overhead.

“You are a fine fellow for letting your opportunities slip,” said the squirrel; “do you not know that when you meet the fairies’ cobbler you should never take your eyes off him for a moment? So long as you keep on looking at him, he is bound to give you whatever you may ask, though you should demand of him all the crocks of gold in Fairyland, but he will try to startle or deceive you, and then your chance is lost.”

“I will remember your good advice another time,” said the apprentice, and he went on into the wood. At sunset he came to another glade, and there he once more caught sight of the fairies’ cobbler, seated upon a tree-stump.

“This time you shall not escape me,” he cried, and fixing his eyes upon the mannikin he repeated his request, “I pray you, teach me my trade.”

“The cobbler’s craft is not an easy one,” replied the little man surlily, “the fairies dance so much and so often that it is all I can do to keep them in shoes. Only look at this pair now—it was new at moonrise.”

“They are indeed much worn,” said the apprentice, but even as he spoke he became aware that the fairies’ cobbler had once more disappeared. The next moment he heard a soft chuckle behind him, and looking round he noticed a large white owl perched upon a bush hard by.

“He had you that time,” said the owl; “why ever did you look down at the shoes? The safest way to make sure of the fairies’ cobbler is to steal up from behind and catch hold of him, and should he seem unwilling to grant your request you have but to hold him over running water, and he will give you all you ask.”

“I will remember your good advice another time,” said the apprentice, and he went further into the wood. Now after a while he heard the sound of a waterfall, and came upon yet another glade that lay all silvered in the light of the moon, and he was just debating within himself whether this were not a good place in which to spend the night, when for the third time he caught sight of the fairies’ cobbler, seated upon a toadstool. Softly he crept up behind him, and took hold of the mannikin firmly by the lappets of his green coat.

“You shall not escape me again,” said he.

“That is as may be,” quoth the fairies’ cobbler morosely; “pray what reason is there that I should teach the tricks of my trade to a mortal?”