“Good evening, godmother!” said Miss Jenny Wren.

The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on.  “Won’t you come in and warm yourself, godmother?” she asked.

“Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear.”

“Well!” exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted.  “Now you ARE a clever old boy!  If we only gave prizes at this establishment you should have the first silver medal for taking me up so quick.”  As she spake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the house-door from the keyhole, and put it in her pocket.  Satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one hand through the old man’s arm, and prepared to ply her crutch-stick with the other.  But the key was of such gigantic proportions that before they started, Riah proposed to carry it.

“No, no, no!  I’ll carry it myself,” returned Miss Wren.  “I’m awfully lop-sided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket, it’ll trim the ship.  To let you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side o’ purpose.”

With that they began their plodding through the fog.

“Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother,” returned Miss Wren, with great approbation, “to understand me.  But, you see, you are so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books!  You look so unlike the rest of the people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some benevolent object.  Bah!” cried Miss Jenny, putting her face close to the old man’s, “I can see your features, godmother, behind the beard.”

“Does the fancy go to my changing other objects, too, Jenny?”

“Ah!  That it does!  If you’d only borrow my stick, and tap this piece of pavement, it would start up a coach and six.  I say,—­Let’s believe so!”

“With all my heart,” replied the good old man.

“And I’ll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother.  I must ask you to be so kind as to give my child a tap, and change him altogether.  Oh, my child has been such a bad, bad child of late!  It worries me almost out of my wits.  Not done a stroke of work these ten days.”

“What shall be changed after him?” asked Riah, in a compassionately playful voice.

“Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and get you to set me right in the back and legs.  It’s a little thing to you with your power, godmother, but it’s a great deal to poor, weak, aching me.”

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the less touching for that.

“And then?”

“Yes, and then—­you know, godmother.  Well both jump into the coach and six, and go to Lizzie.  This reminds me, godmother, to ask you a serious question.  You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this,—­Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”

“Explain, goddaughter.”

“I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now than I used to feel before I knew her.” (Tears were in her eyes as she said so.)