“They wear long green coats covered with darns and patches, and are only found now in the depths of the country. They like to live on prosperous farms, and though some of them are barely an inch high, they can lift heavier weights than the strongest labourer. Like the Brownies, they can be mischievous as well as helpful. A farmer once offended a Portune by speaking disrespectfully of his kindred, and the next time that the good man rode home from market in the dusk, the little fellow sprang on to the horse’s reins, and guided him into the bog. Both horse and man had to flounder out as best they could, and the farmer was careful henceforth to mind his tongue.”

“And what are Pixies like?” I asked. She had said that I reminded her of one of these, so of course I was curious about them.

“They are much taller than we are, and very fair,” answered Titania, “with blue-grey eyes like yours. If you want to meet them, you must go to Devonshire, for it is there that they make their home. They love the ferns and the heather, and the rich red earth, and live in a Pixy-house in a rock. They, also, are ruled by a King, who commands them as I do my Elves and Fays, despatching them hither and thither to do his will. Sometimes he sends them down to the mines, to show the men who work there where the richest lode is to be found; and if the miners grumble, or are discontented, the Pixies lead them astray by lighting false fires. On other occasions they are told off to help the villagers with their housework, and their attentions are warmly welcomed by the Devon folk. One good dame was so pleased with the help a ragged little Pixie who had torn her frock on a sweet-briar bush gave her with her spinning, that she made her a new set of clothes of bright green cloth, and laid these by the spinning wheel. The Pixy put them on at once, and singing

sped out of the house in broad daylight, and, alas! she never came back again.”

“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed a merry voice, and a shock-headed little fellow swung himself down from a bough just behind me, and turned a somersault on the ground.

“Welcome, gay Puck!” Titania cried. “Whence do you come, and what do you do this night?”

“I come from the court of King Oberon, sweet Titania,” answered the Elf, “and to-night I plait the manes and tails of Farmer Best’s grey horses. At early dawn I shall skim the cream off the milk in his good wife’s dairy, since yester-e’en she grudged a drink of it to an orphan child. ‘Robin Goodfellow has been here!’ she will cry when she sees what I have been after, and her greedy old eyes will fill with tears. That is one of my pet names, Wide-eyes,” he added, hopping on to my shoulder and pinching my ear. “I am also Pouke, Hobgoblin, and Robin Hood. But where are the Urchins, my merry play-fellows? It is high time that they were here, for the lady moon has hung her lamp i’ the sky.”

“The Fairy Ring was thronged with dancing Elves”

The clouds were all tinted a deep rose pink, and behind the trees, just where the moon had risen, was a haze of purple. I knew by this that it must be nearly tea-time, and I was just going to say that I must go, when Titania left the frond of bracken, and alighted in the centre of the Fairy Ring. Waving her wand, she summoned her “gladsome sprites,” and next moment the Fairy Ring was thronged with dancing Elves who wore red caps and silver shoes, with bright green mantles buttoned with bobs of silk. Puck flew to join them, but Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed, who sprang from nowhere, danced in an inner circle round the Fairy Queen. They sang as they danced, and this is their song. I found it afterwards in a book of Father’s, which he said had in it more wonderful things than all books in the world but one:

“And about goe wee, goe wee!” echoed down the glade, and then the Elves suddenly disappeared, with Puck and Titania and her attendants.

The wood was growing darker every minute, but the sparkles of frost were glittering still, and lit my way. At the end of the scrub I saw Father coming to meet me, swinging down the road with such long steps that he looked like a kindly big giant. He had guessed where I had gone, and he was so pleased to find me that he forgot to say I mustn’t explore any more without him, as I was afraid he would. He took my hand, and we both ran; it was lovely at home by the fire.

I meant to have told him about Queen Titania while we were having tea, but Nancy had made such scrumptious cakes that there wasn’t time at first, and before I had finished he began to open the letters that had come just after he left that morning. They seemed to be all bills, and Father sighed as he looked them over, his forehead puckered into rucks and lines. Presently he came to a big blue envelope, and he turned this round and round as if he thought there might be something horrid inside. The paper crackled like anything as he drew it out, and when it was unfolded he sat looking at it for a long time, though there didn’t seem to be much writing. At last he gave an odd kind of gasp, and took my face between his hands. He pressed it so hard that he made me say “O!” though I didn’t want to do this, and I wondered what had happened.

“Your great-aunt Helen is dead, Chris,” he said at last, as he let me go. “I haven’t seen her for years and years.… She was not over kind to me when I was a lad, though I believe she meant well.… And now she’s left us all her money. We shan’t be poor any more.”

This was the beginning of ever so many surprises. First, Father and I had warm new overcoats, with woolly stuff inside them that felt like blankets, only much more soft and fluffy, and Nancy had the blue silk dress she always vowed that she should buy when her ship came home. There was a fire every night in Father’s study, and I had one in my bedroom. More patients came up for soup than they did for medicine, and they said “God bless you, Sir!” to Father so often that he wanted to run away. The children in the hospital had the biggest tree that the ward would hold, and all the old men and women in the workhouse had a big tea, and shawls and mufflers.

A few weeks later a strange young man with a very shiny collar and a new brown bag came to stay with us. Father said he was a “locum,” but Nancy said it ought to be “locust,” for his appetite was enormous, and she couldn’t make enough buttered toast to please him. He had come to take care of Father’s patients until someone bought all the medicines and things in the surgery, and I was awfully glad to hear we were going away.

“We’ll go straight to the sunshine, Chris,” said