Some said she was a changeling; others that she had found the four-leaved clover or the fairy ointment, and rubbed her eyes with it.  But it was her own secret; for whenever the people tried to follow her to the “Gardens,” whir! whir! whir! buzzed in their ears, as if a flight of bees were passing, and every limb would feel as if stuck full of pins and pinched with tweezers, and they were rolled over and over, their tongues tied as if with cords, and at last, as soon as they could manage, they would pick themselves up, and hobble home for their lives.

Well, the history—­which, I must remind you, is a true one—­goes on to say that in time the girl grew ambitious, or fell in love (I cannot remember which), and went to London.  In any case it must have been a strong call that took her:  for there are no fairies in London.  I regret that my researches do not allow me to tell you how the Small People at home took her departure; but we will suppose that it grieved them deeply.  Nor can I say precisely how the girl fared for many years.  I think her fortune contained both joy and sorrow for a while; and I suspect that many passages of her life would be sadly out of place in this story, even if they could be hunted out.  Indeed, fairy-tales have to omit so much nowadays, and therefore seem so antiquated, that one marvels how they could ever have been in fashion.

But you may take it as sure that in the end this girl met with more sorrow than joy; for when next she comes into sight it is in London streets and she is in rags.  Moreover, though she wears a flush on her cheeks, above the wrinkles it does not come of health or high spirits, but perhaps from the fact that in the twenty years’ interval she has seen millions of men and women, but not one single fairy.

In those latter days I met her many times.  She passed under your windows shortly before dawn on the night that you gave your dance, early in the season.  You saw her, I think?—­a woman who staggered a little, and had some words with the policeman at the corner:  but, after all, a staggering woman in London is no such memorable sight.  All day long she was seeking work, work, work; and after dark she sought forgetfulness.  She found the one, in small quantities, and out of it she managed to buy the other, now and then, over the counter.  But she had long given up looking for the fairies.  The lights along the Embankment had ceased to remind her of those in the Small People’s Gardens; nor did the noise bursting from music-hall doors as she passed, recall the old sounds; and as for the scents, there were plenty in London, but none resembling that of the garden which you might smell a mile out at sea.