Now thoroughly alarmed, he dismissed her quickly with a handful of coins, and calling Pepita to him, gazed at her long and searchingly. When the flush that his now unaccustomed touch had brought to her sweet face faded, he saw she was pale and thin. Her mouth drooped sadly, and purple shadows brooded round her eyes. With a cry of remorse he drew her to his breast, and kissed her tenderly. 'You shall spin no longer, my Pepita,' he said, 'for I would rather have you as you are than be rich as Satan himself!'" * * * * * And this was the very last story I heard. We started for home next morning, and I went to school at the half term--a ripping school where there was any amount of cricket, and so many other games that I had no time to think of Fairies. But some day I'm going to find the Peri, and those other wonderful Sprites and Goblins of which Titania told me when I met her in the wood that Christmas day. [Illustration] Printed by W. W. Curtis, Ltd., Cheylesmore Press, Coventry. [Illustration] Transcriber's note: A few obvious printer's errors were corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were preserved. End of Project Gutenberg's The Fairies and the Christmas Child, by Lilian Gask