not say which of them might be called into great company before
nightfall. Childe Charity's cousins, hearing this, put on the richest of
their silks and laces, and strutted like peacocks from kitchen to
parlour all day.

They were in very bad humour when night fell, and nobody had come. But
just as the family were sitting down to supper the ugly dog began to
bark, and the old woman's knock was heard at the back door.

Childe Charity opened it, and was going to offer her bed and supper as
usual, when the old woman said: "This is the shortest day in all the
year, and I am going home to hold a feast after my travels. I see you
have taken good care of my dog, and now if you will come with me to my
house, he and I will do our best to entertain you. Here is our company."

As the old woman spoke there was a sound of far-off flutes and bugles,
then a glare of lights. And a great company, clad so grandly that they
shone with gold and jewels, came in open chariots, covered with gilding
and drawn by snow-white horses. The first and finest of the chariots was
empty. The old woman led Childe Charity to it by the hand, and the ugly
dog jumped in before her.

The proud cousins, in all their finery, had by this time come to the
door, but nobody wanted them. No sooner was the old woman and her dog
within the chariot than a wonderful change passed over them, for the
ugly old woman turned at once to a beautiful young princess, with long
yellow curls and a robe of green and gold; while the ugly dog at her
side started up a fair young prince, with nut-brown hair and a robe of
purple and silver.

"We are," said they, as the chariots drove on, "a prince and princess of
Fairyland, and there was a wager between us whether or not there were
good people still to be found in these false and greedy times. One said
'Yes', and the other said 'No'."

"And I have lost," said the Prince, "and must pay the feast and
presents."

Childe Charity never heard any more of that story. Some of the farmer's
household, who were looking after them, said the chariots had gone one
way across the meadows, some said they had gone another, and till this
day they cannot agree upon the way they went.

But Childe Charity went with that noble company into a country such as
she had never seen--for primroses covered all the ground, and the light
was always like that of a summer evening. They took her to a royal
palace, where there was nothing but feasting and dancin