pilot myself, or
what would be the use of having wings? I came on some thistle-down this
time, for I wanted to have another peep at you, and I have had hard work
to follow you in here, I assure you; but the vibrations of that lovely
music helped me, and here I am. Do not talk--let me do it all. I never
have much time, you know, and I want to thank you for your goodness in
taking my advice, and helping some of my little sick friends. You do not
begin to know what good you have done--nobody does; but doing good is
very like the big snowballs that children make in winter--a little ball
at first, but as they roll, it grows bigger and bigger, almost of
itself, until it is more than one can manage. So it has been with your
kind action: many have imitated it, and flowers come now to the
hospitals by the bushel. Not only children, but grown people, sad with
suffering, have been cheered and benefited. And you too are growing
strong: how glad I am to see it! Your cheeks are tinged with just a
delicate bloom, and you have grown taller. Ah, the country is the place
for you children! I saw one of your sketches in the hospital the other
day, hung under a little cross made of moss; it was a water-lily, and
out of it was stepping some one who looked like me. The child who owned
it said it came to her tied to some roses. She did not know I heard her;
she was telling a visitor, and she said it made her happy every time she
looked at it. That was a pretty thought of yours. This is my last visit
for a long while. I am to be sent off to fan her Royal Highness, the
Queen of Kind Wishes, when her coronation takes place. She lives in her
palace of Heart's Ease, in a far-away island. I am to sail part of the
way in a nautilus--one of those lovely shells you have seen, I dare
say."

"No," said Phil, "I never saw one. And so you are going away--"

"Never saw a nautilus!" interrupted the fairy, as if afraid Phil was
going to be doleful over her departure. "It looks like a ship, for all
the world, and it _is_ a ship for me, but it would not hold you--oh no!
not such a gigantic creature as a boy"; and the fairy laughed aloud.

"Dear me," said Phil; "no more visits, no more fairy stories. What will
I do?"

"Shall I tell you just one more story before I say good-bye?"

"Please do."

"Well, shut your eyes and listen."

Phil obeyed, and the fairy began:

"In the days when fairies had much more power than they now have, there
lived in a little