overty.

The moral of this story was obvious even to my juvenile mind. It
plainly pointed to the necessity for being prepared to take the fullest
advantage of every opportunity, whenever it might present itself; and I
was resolved that, if ever I encountered a fairy, he should find me
fully prepared to tax his generosity to its utmost limit. And,
forthwith, I began to ask myself what was the most desirable thing at
all likely to be within a fairy's power of bestowal. At this point I,
for the first time, began to realise the difficulties of the situation
in which the unhappy boy of the story found himself. I thought of
several things; but none of them came quite up to my idea of a gift such
as would do full honour and justice to a fairy's power of giving; the
utmost I could imagine was a real ship full of real sailors, wherein I
might roam the seas and perform wonderful voyages like Sindbad; and, in
my efforts to achieve a still higher flight of imagination, I found
myself so completely at a loss that I was fain to turn to Mary for
counsel. Accordingly, as I was being escorted by that damsel upstairs
to bed one night, I broached the subject by saying:

"Mary, supposing you were to meet a fairy, what would you ask him to
give you?"

"Lor'! Master Lionel, I dun know," she replied. "That's a question I
shouldn't like to answer just off-hand; I should want to think it over a
good bit. I should read a lot of books, and find out what was the best
thing as was to be had."

"What sort of books?" I asked.

"Oh! any sort," was the reply; "books such as them down-stairs in your
pa's lib'ry; them's downright _beautiful_ books--your pa's--full of all
sorts of wonderful things such as you never heard tell of."

This reply afforded me food for a considerable amount of profound
reflection before I went to sleep that night; the result of which was
that on the following morning, as soon as I had taken my breakfast, I
descended to the "lib'ry," opened the doors of one of the book-cases,
and dragged down upon my curly pate the most bulky volume I could reach.
With the expenditure of a considerable amount of labour I conveyed it
to the nursery, and, flinging it and myself upon the floor, opened it
hap-hazard, feeling sure that, in a book of such imposing dimensions, I
should find something valuable wherever I might open it. It was an
English work of some kind, I remember; but, alas for my aspirations! it
might almost as well