that when you stretch out
your hands to the flames they give a little jump towards you and then
dance up the chimney ever so much higher than before. Are you a sort of
a fairy, dear Nance?'

Pat glanced at the little girl half uneasily. He knew that some of the
people about called Mrs. Crag a witch, and 'uncanny,' and words like
that, just because she was a stranger and different in her ways and
looks from her present neighbours, and he was afraid that Nance's
feelings might be hurt by little Rosamond's question.

But it was not so--on the contrary the old woman seemed pleased, and
smiled brightly.

'You must have a bit of the fairy knowing yourself, missie dear, to have
noticed it,' she said. 'I've been told I get it from my grandmother, who
had fairy ways, there's no denying. And no harm in them either, if one
doesn't think too much of them, or fancy oneself more than one is. But
I've always had a kind of luck, hand-in-hand with troubles, for
troubles I've had, and many of them, in my long life. More than once
when I've thought they'd be too much for me there's come a turn I had
little hope of. Maybe the good people aren't gone so far as we think,
after all,' and old Nance smiled at the idea.

'Tell us some story of your good luck,' said Pat suddenly. 'It's always
so nice to hear a story from the person it really happened to.'

Nance considered. Then she suddenly slipped her hand inside the front of
her bodice and drew out a tiny little chain; it was only a steel chain,
but very finely worked, so that it looked more like a silver thread, and
on it hung a tiny coin with a hole in it through which a ring had been
passed. She held it out for the children to see.

'Oh what a weeny, weeny little sixpenny, or threepenny--which is it?'
exclaimed Rosamond.

'It's neither, missie dear,' the old woman replied. 'It's a lucky penny,
and if you like I'll tell you the story of how I came by it.'

'Oh do, do,' said all three together; Archie adding, 'Did you really get
it from the fairies, Nance?'

'You shall hear,' she replied, smiling, and then they all settled
themselves to listen.

'When I was a little girl,' she began, 'you'll remember, my dears, that
my home was on the edge of a moor, something like this, but wilder and
far larger and farther away from any village or town--railways I needn't
speak of, for such a thing hadn't even been dreamt of in these long-ago
days,' and the far-away look came into the old woman'