These sisters lived near the top of a mountain in a fairy cottage.  This cottage had never been seen by any of the people, but the sisters had often told them all about it.  It must have been a charming place.

The house was not much bigger than a bandbox, and it had two stories and a garret, with a little portico running all around it.  Inside was the dearest little furniture of all kinds,—­beds, tables, chairs, and everything that could possibly be needed.

Everything about the house and grounds was on the same small scale.  There was a little stable and a little barn, with a little old man to work the little garden and attend to the two little cows.  Around the house were garden-beds ever so small, and little graveled paths; and a kitchen-garden, where the peas climbed up little sticks no bigger than pins, and where the little chickens, about the size of flies, sometimes got in and scratched up the little vegetables.  There was a little meadow for pasture, and a grove of little trees; and there was also a small field of sweet marjoram, where the blossoms were so tiny that you could hardly have seen them without a magnifying glass.

It was not very far from this cottage to the sweet marjoram country, and the fairy sisters had no trouble at all in running down there whenever they felt like it, but none of the people had ever seen this little home.  They had looked for it, but could not find it, and the fairies would never take any of them to it.  They said it was no place for human beings.  Even the smallest boy, if he were to trip his toe, might fall against their house and knock it over; and as to any of them coming into the fairy grounds, that would be impossible, for there was no spot large enough for even a common-sized baby to creep about in.

On Sweet Marjoram Day the fairies never failed to come.  Every year they taught the people new games, and all sorts of new ways of having fun.  People would never have even thought of having such good times if it had not been for these fairies.

One delightful afternoon, about a month before Sweet Marjoram Day, Corette, who was a little girl just old enough, and not a day too old (which is exactly the age all little girls ought to be), was talking about the fairy cottage to some of her companions.

“We never can see it,” said Corette, sorrowfully.

“No,” said one of the other girls, “we are too big.  If we were little enough, we might go.”

“Are you sure the sisters would be glad to see us, then?” asked Corette.

“Yes, I heard them say so.  But it doesn’t matter at all, as we are not little enough.”

“No,” said Corette, and she went off to take a walk by herself.

She had not walked far before she reached a small house which stood by the sea-shore.  This house belonged to a Reformed Pirate who lived there all by himself.  He had entirely given up a sea-faring life so as to avoid all temptation, and he employed his time in the mildest pursuits he could think of.