you want to go on being a boy for ever, reading all sorts of books you have no business to read, and banging people on the head when they offend you, and looking alarming old ladies in the face without flinching; or do you want to be combed and brushed and smoothed into a young lady, and taught to rave about art and music and poetry, and told to look down when you are spoken to, and never to answer back if the truth is unpleasant? Hey? Which is it to be?’

Barbara was looking puzzled. ‘I don’t think I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘Do you mean that I must be either me or–or Jill?’

‘Well, supposing we put it that way,’ replied Mrs. Crofton, smiling again. ‘Which do you choose to be?’

Barbara did not stop to think about it. ‘I don’t want to be either, thank you,’ she said decidedly. ‘I would much rather be like you or father.’

Mr. Berkeley chuckled once more, and his sister struck her cane on the ground and laughed heartily. ‘A pretty mess you’ve made of your daughter’s education, I must say,’ she remarked. Then she turned again to Babs. ‘Well, child, I see you are going to be like your father in any case; and as for me–well, we’ll see if we can’t prevent such a terrible result as that. And now, I want you to pretend that I am a fairy godmother. Do you think you can?’

Barbara nodded, and her small black eyes glistened. It was not difficult to do that. Already the bonnet with the pink feathers had turned into a steeple-hat, and the black silk mantle into a scarlet cloak, and the blue-knobbed cane into a broomstick. The little impish face was aglow with delight as the old lady went on:

‘Now, I’ve just come down the chimney with a bang, and I am going to give my goddaughter the wish that she wishes most in all the world. But mind–if I have a suspicion that what she asks for is not what she really wants–bang! up the chimney I go again!’

Barbara took a flying leap into the middle of the room, and spun round with her favourite movement on the tips of her toes. Her heart was thumping wildly with excitement at finding herself in the middle of a real fairy story; and when she at last stood still again, she was almost too breathless to speak.