“But perhaps you would be very glad,” he resumed, “if suddenly one of those good fairies you read of could change the domino-box into a beautiful geranium in a beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and you could have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma’s window-sill.” “Indeed I would!” said I, half-crying. “My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don’t mend bad actions: good actions mend bad actions.” So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot tell you how puzzled I was to make out what my father meant by his aphorism. But I know that I played at dominos no more that day. The next morning my father found me seated by myself under a tree in the garden; he paused, and looked at me with his grave bright eyes very steadily. “My boy,” said he, “I am going to walk to ----,” a town about two miles off: “will you come? And, by the by, fetch your domino-box. I should like to show it to a person there.” I ran in for the box, and, not a little proud of walking with my father upon the high-road, we set out. “Papa,” said I by the way, “there are no fairies now.” “What then, my child?” “Why, how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a blue-and-white flower-pot?” “My dear,” said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, “everybody who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him,--one here,” and he touched my heart, “and one here,” and he touched my forehead. “I don’t understand, papa.” “I can wait till you do, Pisistratus. What a name!” My father stopped at a nursery gardener’s, and after looking over the flowers, paused before a large double geranium. “Ah! this is finer than that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?” “Only 7s. 6d.,” said the gardener. My father buttoned up his pocket. “I can’t afford it to-day,” said he, gently, and we walked out. On entering the town, we stopped again at a china warehouse. “Have you a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one, marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well; when your mamma’s birthday comes again, we must buy her another. That is some months to wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never broken, is better than a piece of delf.” My head, which had drooped before, rose again; but the rush of joy at my heart almost stifled me. “I have called to pay your little bill,” said my father, entering the shop of one of those fancy stationers common in country towns, and who sell all kinds of pretty toys and knick-knacks. “And by the way,” he added, as the smiling shopman looked over his books for the entry, “I think my little boy here can show you a much handsomer specimen of French workmanship than that work-box which you enticed Mrs. Caxton into raffling for, last winter. Show your domino-box, my dear.”