ry of
playing, at dominos with Mrs. Primmins, and I slept with the box under
my pillow.

"Ah!" said my father one day, when he found me ranging the ivory
parallelograms in the parlor, "ah! you like that better than all your
playthings, eh?"

"Oh, yes, papa!"

"You would be very sorry if your mamma were to throw that box out of the
window and break it for fun." I looked beseechingly at my father, and
made no answer.

"But perhaps you would be very glad," he resumed, "if suddenly one
of those good fairies you read of could change the domino-box into a
beautiful geranium in a beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and you
could have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma's window-sill."

"Indeed I would!" said I, half-crying.

"My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don't mend bad actions:
good actions mend bad actions."

So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot tell you how puzzled
I was to make out what my father meant by his aphorism. But I know that
I played at dominos no more that day. The next morning my father found
me seated by myself under a tree in the garden; he paused, and looked at
me with his grave bright eyes very steadily.

"My boy," said he, "I am going to walk to ----," a town about two miles
off: "will you come? And, by the by, fetch your domino-box. I should
like to show it to a person there." I ran in for the box, and, not a
little proud of walking with my father upon the high-road, we set out.

"Papa," said I by the way, "there are no fairies now."

"What then, my child?"

"Why, how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a
blue-and-white flower-pot?"

"My dear," said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, "everybody
who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him,--one
here," and he touched my heart, "and one here," and he touched my
forehead.

"I don't understand, papa."

"I can wait till you do, Pisistratus. What a name!"

My father stopped at a nursery gardener's, and after looking over the
flowers, paused before a large double geranium. "Ah! this is finer than
that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?"

"Only 7s. 6d.," said the gardener.

My father buttoned up his pocket. "I can't afford it to-day," said he,
gently, and we walked out.

On entering the town, we stopped again at a china warehouse. "Have you
a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one, marked
3s. 6d. Yes, that is the p