A great many children live on the borders of Fairy-land and never visit it at all, and really there are people who grow up and are not very unhappy who will not believe they have lived near to it all their lives. But if once you have been in that pleasant country you never quite forget it, and when some stupid man says, "It is all stuff and nonsense," you do not say much, even if you yourself have come to be an old fellow with hair of two colors, but you feel proud to know how much more you have seen of the world than he has. Children are the best travelers in Fairy-land, and there also is another kingdom which is easy for them to reach and hard for some older folks. Once upon a time there was a small boy who lived so near to Fairy-land that he sometimes got over the fence and inside of that lovely country, but, being a little afraid, never went very far, and was quick to run home if he saw Blue Beard or an Ogre or even Goody Two-Shoes. Once or twice he went a little farther, and saw things which may be seen but can never be written. Sometimes he told his father that he had been into Fairy-land; but his father, who was a brick-maker and lived in the wood, only laughed, and cried aloud; "Next time you go, be sure to fetch back some fairy money." One day the small boy, whose real name was Little Boy, told his father that he had gone a mile into Fairy-land, and that there the people were born old and grew younger all the time, and that on this account the hands of their clocks went backward. When his father heard this, he said that boy was only fit to sing songs and be in the sun, and would never make bricks worth a penny. Then he added, sharply, that his son must get to work at once and stop going over the fence to Fairy-land. So, after that, Little Boy was set to dig clay and make bricks for a palace which the King was building. He made a great many bricks of all colors, and did seem to work so very hard that his father began to think he might in time come to make the best of bricks. But if you are making bricks you must not even be thinking of fairies, because something is sure to get into the bricks and spoil them for building anything except a Spanish castle or a palace of Aladdin. I am sorry to say that while Little Boy made bricks and patted them well and helped to bake them hard he was forever thinking of a Fairy who had kissed him one day in the wood. This was a very strange Fairy, large, with white limbs, and eyes which were full of joy for a child, but to such as being old looked upon them, were, as the poet says, "lakes of sadness." Perhaps, being little, you who read can understand this. I cannot; but whoever has once seen this Fairy loves the sun and the woods and all living creatures, and knows things without being taught, and what men will say before they say it. Yet, while he knows all these strange things, and what birds talk about, and what songs the winds sing to the trees, he can never make good bricks.