a water-lily, and out of it was stepping some one who looked like me.  The child who owned it said it came to her tied to some roses.  She did not know I heard her; she was telling a visitor, and she said it made her happy every time she looked at it.  That was a pretty thought of yours.  This is my last visit for a long while.  I am to be sent off to fan her Royal Highness, the Queen of Kind Wishes, when her coronation takes place.  She lives in her palace of Heart’s Ease, in a far-away island.  I am to sail part of the way in a nautilus—­one of those lovely shells you have seen, I dare say.”

“No,” said Phil, “I never saw one.  And so you are going away—­”

“Never saw a nautilus!” interrupted the fairy, as if afraid Phil was going to be doleful over her departure.  “It looks like a ship, for all the world, and it is a ship for me, but it would not hold you—­oh no! not such a gigantic creature as a boy”; and the fairy laughed aloud.

“Dear me,” said Phil; “no more visits, no more fairy stories.  What will I do?”

“Shall I tell you just one more story before I say good-bye?”

“Please do.”

“Well, shut your eyes and listen.”

Phil obeyed, and the fairy began: 

“In the days when fairies had much more power than they now have, there lived in a little house on the edge of a wood haunted by elves and brownies a boy named Arthur.  He was a bright, handsome lad, but a little lazy, and much more fond of pleasure than of work; and he had a way of flinging himself down in the woods to lounge and sleep when his mother at home was waiting for him to come back with a message, or to do some little promised task.  Now the fairies knew this, and it displeased them; for they are as busy as bees, and do not like idleness.  Besides, as one bad habit leads to another, Arthur, in his lounging ways, would often do great damage to the fairies’ flower-beds, switching off the heads of wild-flowers in the most ruthless fashion, and even pulling them up by the roots when he felt like it.

“One day he had been indulging this whim without any motive, hardly even thinking what he was doing, when he began to feel very strangely:  a slight chill made him shiver; his eyes felt as if they were coming out of his head, his legs as if they were getting smaller and smaller; he had an irresistible desire to hop, and he was very thirsty.  There was a rivulet near, and instead of walking to it he leaped, and stooping to drink, he saw himself reflected in its smooth surface.  No longer did he see Arthur; no longer was he a mortal boy.  Instead of this, a frog—­a green speckled frog, with great bulging eyes and a fishy mouth—­looked up at him.  He tried to call, to shout, but in vain; he could only croak, and this in the most dismal manner.  What was he to do?  Sit and stare about him, try to catch flies, plunge down into the mud—­charming amusements for the rest of his life!  A little brown bird hopped down for a drink from the rivulet; she stooped and rose, stooped and rose, again and again.