FAIRIES AND CHILDREN 203 



with her. ... I paused, thinking it strange they 

 should prefer seclusion when there were fish to be 

 caught, and butterflies to hunt in the sun outside ; 

 and as I cogitated thus, the grown-up man caught 



sight of me. 



KENNETH GRAHAME. 



FAIRIES AND CHILDREN 1 



(From " The Little White Bird") 



IT is frightfully difficult to know much about the 

 fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain 

 is that there are fairies wherever there are children. 

 Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and 

 at that time there was not a fairy in the place ; 

 then the children were admitted, and the fairies 

 came trooping in that very evening. . . . 



When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty 

 well, and you remember a good deal about them in 

 your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't 

 write down, for gradually you forget, and I have 

 heard of children who declared that they had never 

 once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in 

 the Kensington Gardens, they were standing look- 

 ing at a fairy all the time. The reason they were 

 cheated was that she pretended to be something 

 else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually 

 pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the 

 Fairies' Basin, and there are so many flowers there, 

 and all along the Baby Walk, that a flower is the 



1 From The Little White Bird ; copyright, 1902, by Charles 

 Scribner's Sons. 



