But
the fairy was already disappearing behind the counterpane hill. All he
could see was the top of her pointed hood. Then that too disappeared.
The door was thrown open and Harriett came running in bringing a breath
of fresh out-of-doors air with her. Her cheeks were red, and she looked
very pretty in her embroidered apron and pink ribbons.

CHAPTER SEVENTH. THE RAINBOW CHILDREN.

IT was Sunday afternoon, and everything was very still.

Teddy had been allowed to sit up that morning for the first time since
he had been ill. He had put on the little blue dressing-gown that mamma
had made for him, and she was so funny about getting him into it,
and wheeling the chair over to the window, that Teddy had laughed and
laughed.

After that he sat at the window looking out and watching the chickens in
the yard below, and the people going along the street.

Teddy's mamma was going to church, but his father stayed home with the
little boy, and told him stories, and drew pictures with a blue pencil
on a writing-pad; pictures of "David Killing Goliath," and of "Daniel in
the Lions' Den."

Then he drew a picture of the house in the real country where he and
mamma and Teddy were going to live some time--a house with a barn, and
horses, and cows, and pigs, and a pony that Teddy could ride when he
came in to town to school.

The morning flew by so quickly that the little boy was surprised when
mamma came back from church, and said it was almost time for luncheon.

She looked at the pictures that papa had drawn, and smiled when Teddy
told her about them; but very soon she began to talk seriously with
papa. She told him she had stopped in at Mrs. McFinney's on her way
home, and that she had been wondering whether something couldn't be done
for little Ellen McFinney's lameness. She felt so sorry for her.

Papa said the child ought to be sent to a hospital, and he thought that
if that were done she could be cured. Mamma said that she thought so
too; but that someone had been talking to little Ellen, and frightened
her so that she cried whenever the hospital was talked of, and her
mother would not send her unless she felt willing to go.

Then mamma spoke of how lonely it must be for the little girl there in
the house by herself all the day, while her mother was out at work, with
so little to amuse her.

"Mamma," said Teddy, "why can't little Ellen have some of my books to
amuse her--some I had when I was sick? Because, you k