ie received her whipping like the rest; but instead of
tossing her on the bed, Bessie set her back in her little chair, turning
her face to the window that she might not see it.

Somehow her anger seemed to have spent itself with that last whipping,
and a feeling of shame was creeping into her little heart. She had
intended to go through her baby-house, chastising all its inmates, but
instead she took a picture-book, and lay down on the lounge by the
window.

How quiet everything seemed! Annie had carried Baby down stairs to feed
him. She heard no sound but the murmur of the sewing-machine in the next
room, where Jane Kennedy, the seamstress, was working. She felt drowsy
and sleepy. Slowly her head sank down among the cushions of the lounge,
and the drooping eyelids closed.

A rustling sound near her made her open them with a start, and in a
minute more she was sitting bolt-upright, staring with all her eyes. For
there stood a little figure no taller than Winnie, dressed in a white
fleecy robe trailing on the ground. Her soft black hair reached to her
feet, and over it she wore a wreath that sparkled like dew-drops in the
sun.

[Illustration: "A FROWN WAS ON THE FAIRY'S BROW."]

Some fear mingled with Bessie's admiration as she gazed upon her. For a
frown was on the fairy's brow, and the dark eyes she fixed upon the
child were full of displeasure.

Tap, tap, tap, came the sound of little feet approaching. Bessie looked
round, then shrank back, terror-stricken. Well she might, for her dolls
Augusta and Grace had somehow found the use of their limbs, and were
rapidly nearing the lounge. But they paused not far from the fairy, and
reached out their little hands to her with a supplicating gesture.

"Kind fairy! good fairy!" they said, in shrill piping voices, "avenge
the wrong done to us. That child, who calls herself our mother, has
beaten us cruelly, just because she had nothing else to vent her spite
upon; we had done no harm in any way. Punish her, good fairy; make her
sorry for having treated us so."

"I will give her into your hands," said the fairy, gravely. "See that
you punish her as she deserves."

Bessie, who lay trembling and burning with mingled fear and shame, now
rallied her courage, and raised her head again. She could not help
laughing at the idea of her own dolls punishing her.

"You foolish little fairy!" she said, laughing; "I could manage them
both with one hand; and if--"

She stopped agh