"P'r'aps Dirk would have minded once, before he went away," she said ruefully. "But not now--oh no--they say he's grown so fine and strong like the others. He won't care for me any more, I'm sure. That's another reason why I wish you'd let me stay with you and never go back to the farm again. Aunt says I grow stupider and stupider, and uglier too, I daresay she thinks, though she doesn't exactly say so. And just look at me"--she held out her shabby old skirt as she spoke--"this horrid dress is only fit for a beggar girl, and I'll have to wear it all the week, though it wasn't my fault that I dirtied my nice clean one. The lane was so slippery, and so muddy. It had been raining so hard." The Sunshine fairy smiled. "Yes," she said, "but you don't know what it would be like in your country if it didn't rain a good deal." "I know it has to, of course," said Merran, "but if only we knew better, everything would be easier. Uncle Mac often says there never was such changeable weather as we have. I don't believe he'd be so cross and surly if he wasn't always worrying about what the sky's like and what it's going to do. And if _I_ knew, I'd take care not to go out without an umbrella, if it was going to be wet, nor along that muddy lane." The Rain fairy had gone back to the fountain while Merran was speaking, and by this time she had quite lost all feelings of shyness with the pretty Sunshine lady. Just then the sound of the rushing water stopped suddenly. The fairy looked up and called out. The words seemed strange, and Merran could not understand them, nor the reply which came back. But Sunshine turned to her. "You will find bright weather on your return," she said, "and I promise you a pleasant surprise as well. So do not be low-spirited, little Merran. You have been watched over in ways you know not of, and you may cheer up from now." But it was difficult for the child to believe this all at once. "Oh mayn't I stay with you, dear kind fairy?" she pleaded again. "It wouldn't matter to me how the time passed. I shouldn't be like little Bridget, who found her friends all gone, for you see I should never want to go back at all. Oh do let me stay. Can't you turn me into a fairy altogether?" she repeated. "I'd be your servant or anything you like." Still Sunshine shook her head. "No, my little maiden," she replied. "What you ask is impossible. You can never become one of us--a human child you are, a woman you must before long become. But a happy woman you may be, and to help you to be happy is the task that has been appointed to us. Long ago, but for love and pity for you, the old rain-house, as you call it, would have fallen to pieces, and we should have deserted the farm altogether, as indeed its master deserved after his treatment of us. He has been punished for it, however, and now by your means great and unusual good fortune may be before him and his. And this I will now explain to you, but on one condition."