e can all do as we please.
Well, when I discovered that you were one of the naughty sort, I thought
I'd have a nearer view of you, and I like you very much. You are pretty,
you know, quite pretty. Not so pretty as I am! Now, look me full in the
face. Did you ever see any one prettier?"

"Irene, you do talk in a wild way!"

"It is rather cheeky of you to call me Irene; but I don't much mind. I
like you to be cheeky. Well, here's the swing. How high up do you want
me to push you?"

"Not any way at all just at present. Let us walk about and talk before
you swing me. I must know something about you. How old are you?"

"I'm sure I don't know--I've forgotten. Oh, by the way, you didn't
understand me when I said I was a changeling."

"I didn't, and I don't. But why do you talk in that silly way?"

"Well, I seriously think I am, for if you had seen father when he was
alive you'd have said if there was a dear--I was very fond of dad--if
there was a dear, sober, conscientious old man--he was a good bit older
than mother--you'd have pronounced that he was he."

"That is very funny English, Irene."

"Oh, never mind! I like to talk in a funny way. Anyhow, you'd have said
that he was he. And then there is mother. You see how good she looks.
She is very handsome, I know, and every one adores her, and so does her
loving daughter Irene; but, all the same, I was made in a sort of
fashion that I really cannot keep indoors. No rain that ever was heard
of could keep me in, and no frost, either. And I have lain sometimes on
the snow for an hour at a time and enjoyed it. And there's scarcely a
night that I spend in bed. I get out, whatever poor old Frosty may do to
keep me within bounds. I can climb up anything, and I can climb down
anything, and I like to have a boat on the lake; and when they are very
bad to me I spend the night there in the very centre of the lake, and
they can't get at me, shout as they may. No, I never take cold."

"The only thing I am keen about is to be allowed to wear colors that I
like. I love gay colors--red one day, yellow the next, the brightest
blue the next I hate art shades. I am not a bit aesthetic. Once they took
me to London, but I ran away home. Oh, what a time I had! I am a wild
sort of thing. Now, do you suppose that any mother, of her own
free-will, would have a daughter like me? Of course I am a changeling. I
suppose I belong to the fairies, and my greatest wish on earth is to see
them some da