Sister Agatha.'

'Oh, then it wasn't you who brought me here!' said Mary, looking a
little disappointed.

'I wasn't sent for until afterwards,' answered Sister Agatha.

'Who sent for you?' asked Mary.

'The person who brought you here.'

'But who was that?' cried Mary excitedly. 'Please do tell me whether it
was a fairy! I'm sure it was, because it couldn't be any one else, you
see.'

'Then that settles the question,' said Sister Agatha, with a smile, and
Mary thought it did.

'Where is she?' she asked.

'A long, long way off! She had to go away the day after you came, so she
asked me to take care of you till she saw you again. But she won't be
long now.'

'Is she very beautiful like the fairies you've read to me about?' asked
Mary.

'I don't suppose there ever was anybody so beautiful,' answered Sister
Agatha.

'And has she got wings like this?' asked Mary, opening a book that lay
on the bed and pointing to one of its coloured pictures.

'I shouldn't wonder,' said Sister Agatha; 'only she doesn't show them
every day, because it isn't the fashion to wear wings, you know.'

'I think that's a pity,' answered Mary; and from that day she thought of
scarcely anything else but how she had been brought away from William
Street by her fairy-godmother, just like Cinderella.

Of course, Mary Brown had never imagined that she had a
fairy-godmother--who could imagine such a thing in William Street! But
then Cinderella had never imagined that she had a fairy-godmother
either, until the night of the grand ball.

One day Sister Agatha told Mary she might get out of bed; she was
carefully wrapped in a dressing-gown and a blanket and carried to a
comfortable arm-chair. On her left foot she wore a pink woollen shoe,
but the other foot looked so clumsy in its great bandages, that Sister
Agatha covered it over.

'I wish you would untie it,' said Mary; 'I really won't run away. I
shan't run away, because I want to see my fairy-godmother so much.'

'Well,' answered Sister Agatha, 'you will see her very soon now; for she
is coming to-morrow.'

II

MARY SEES HER FAIRY-GODMOTHER

Mary Brown did not go to sleep very early that night, and as soon as she
awoke the next morning, she began to ask questions. She wanted Sister
Agatha to tell her at what time her fairy-godmother would come, and
where she was coming from, and what she would be most likely to do when
she arrived.

'And what is her name?' she cried.