by in a sort of proud, admiring sheepishness, while Mrs. Emsworth made herself fascinating. She had a story to tell about those particular flowers the child had in his hat. The fairies had made them during the night. One had brought the white silk out of which they were cut, another had brought oil-paints to colour them, a third had brought a watering-pot with a rose to sprinkle them. But the bad fairy had seen them, and had come on her broomstick, surrounded by an army of flying toads and spiders and slugs, to destroy the flowers. And a toad had just begun to eat the top of one of the flowers when the sun said, ' Pop, I'm coming,' and before the bad fairy could get under shelter it had shone on her, so that she instantly curled up like a burnt feather, and died with a pain so awful that stomach-ache was nothing to it.
This was so absorbing both to the narrator and the audience that neither had observed that someone else was listening, and as the boy broke out into childish laughter, crying, ' That was nice!' at the awful fate of the wicked fairy, Mrs. Emsworth looked behind her, half hearing a sudden rustle, and saw Amelie standing there, also absorbed.
She instantly sat down on the other handle of the barrow.
' Yes, Tommy, that was nice,' she echoed. ' And do you think the lady will tell us another story? Ask her.'
The lady was so kind as to oblige them again. This time it was about a real live person, who was always very good in the morning, and sat down and did her work as she should, with the good fairy sitting beside her. But later on the good fairy would sometimes go to sleep, and as soon as she was asleep all the bad fairies who had not curled up like burnt feathers came in. And one of them made her eat peas with her knife, and another made her spill her bread-and-milk down her new dress, and another made her lose her temper, and another made her make mud pies in the middle of her nice room, so that it had to be
