l fair
health, plenty to eat and drink, and all the so called "necessary"
comforts of life.

Now then to our story.

At the end of ten years the Fairies agreed to go and have a peep how
their charges were going on. They quite knew that nothing decisive
could be found out, till the children had come to years of discretion
and were their own mistresses. Still they thought it would amuse them
just to go and see how the charms were working, as it were; so, away
they went.

Now picture to yourselves a nice large nursery, much such a one as
your own, in which several children are playing. The eldest, a girl of
ten, you may see yonder lounging--gracefully perhaps--but still
_lounging_ in a rocking chair which she is swinging backwards and
forwards, having set it in motion by the action of her foot on the
floor. What a lovely face! I do not think you ever saw one so handsome
except in a print in one of Mamma's best picture books. All the
features are perfectly good and in proportion, and the dark blue eyes
are fringed by the longest eyelashes ever seen. The hair of this
little girl too--look at it, as the soft chestnut ringlets wave about
on her shoulders as she swings, and show the round richness of the
curls.

Now if you ask about the expression on her face, I must tell you it
was rather languid and "_pensieroso_." Pensieroso is an Italian word
really meaning thoughtful--but this little girl was not _thinking_,
for then the expression of her face would have been much stronger and
firmer and less languid; but the word has got to be used for a sort of
awake-dreamy state when one lets thoughts float lazily along without
having any energy to dwell upon them, and see whether they are good or
bad.

The thought that was passing through this little girl's head at the
time I mention and which made her look so languid and pensieroso, was

"I wish it was 6 o'clock."

Now here you are ready to laugh, I know, for there was nothing to look
so languid about, in "I wish it was six o'clock!" but the fact was
this: at half-past six the little girl's Mamma was expecting a large
party to dinner and the little girl was to dress at six and be ready
to go down and see the company:--I might add _and to be seen by them_;
for the little girl was, as you will have guessed, the beautiful
Aurora herself, and there had been plenty of foolish people, though
her good Mamma was not one of them, to tell her how pretty she was and
how much people