"Mortal! cruel mortal!" cried the pixie, "you have stolen my wings! Give them back, I pray you, before the dawn breaks, for the first rays of sunshine will wither me up, and I shall turn into a little faded brown leaf." "Pixie! cruel pixie!" cried Nancy, "you have stolen my child! Bring him back to my arms, and then and not till then will I restore you your wings." "How can I find you your child?" screamed the pixie. "Oh! give me my wings--my pretty white wings; let me fly safely away over the sea ere I turn for ever into a little withered brown leaf!" and she stamped her tiny foot in her helpless passion. "You can and shall find me my child," said Nancy, "for I know that the pixies have stolen him away, and that only a pixie can bring him back to me. Look! the sky is reddening already, your time is short. Do my bidding speedily, and the wings are yours." "The dawn! the dawn!" shrieked the pixie. "Mortal, I will grant you what you ask! Each of the sea-pinks which bloom on this green turf holds the soul of a child which we have stolen away from its cradle. For a moment each pretty flower shall wear its human face, then choose out your own child swiftly and let me be gone." She clapped her hands, and each of the little sea-pinks turned to a smiling baby face. All the merry eyes and tiny curls were there that mothers had mourned for all over the country-side, and at her feet Nancy saw the sweet, laughing face of her stolen child. With a cry of joy she clasped him in her arms. "The dawn! the dawn!" cried the pixie. "Mortal, give me my wings!" Nancy drew them from her bosom, and gave them into the eager, entreating fingers. With a great rush of light the sun rose, his golden beams fell on the wide ledge of rock, lighting up a bed of simple little sea-pinks, while over the broad blue sea there flew a solitary sea-gull. Folding her shawl about her child, Nancy slung him on to her back, and with slow steps and painful fingers she climbed up the face of the cliff. The larks were rising out of the heather, the little blue butterflies were flitting over the yellow gorse, the dew-drops hung like jewels in the gossamer, and far away on the distant water she could see the brown sails of the missing fishing-boats as they beat safely over the bar into Bulvertor Harbour. * * * * * "The story was told me in Devonshire dialect when I was a little girl," said Miss Pollard, as she closed her book, "but I wrote it in ordinary English because the other is so hard to understand. It's funny that in the accounts of fairies they always seem to speak the local languages. Irish fairies talk Erse, and Welsh fairies sing in Welsh. Have you pixies in the north, Mavis?"