“Sorry! Of course I shall; but, John, why must Jack go as well as I? Mother says it is all my fault, and I am to go away, and I don’t know where to go, so I was waiting till you came, to ask you; but if Mr. Leslie is coming, I daresay he’ll take me in for a little while,” said Fairy, with a little sob at the end of each sentence. “Mr. Leslie take my Fairy in. Why, child, you would not leave us now in our hour of trouble, when we most want you to comfort us, would you?” “I don’t want ever to leave you, unless, of course, I find my own parents; but mother says I am to go, and she is sorry she ever took me in, because it is all my fault. So you see, John, of course I must go away after that,” said Fairy, gently. “I can’t spare my little Fairy now. Mother did not mean what she said; she was so upset at seeing poor Charlie insensible, I expect she hardly knew what she was doing, so you must forgive her—will you, little one?—and stay and cheer us in our sorrow,” said John. “Of course I will, if you are quite sure mother didn’t mean it, but she should not have said it was my fault, should she? For she knows as well as you do, John, how fond I am of both the boys, and how I never let them quarrel; only this was done in such a minute I could not stop it; it really was more an accident than anything else. Poor Jack didn’t mean to knock Charlie down, or to hurt him really, only he was so angry about that lamb that he lost his temper. How grave you look, John; you don’t think it was my fault, do you?” Now the shepherd understood perfectly what his wife had meant by saying it was Fairy’s fault; but it was evident the child had not the remotest suspicion of Mrs. Shelley’s meaning; she was too childlike and innocent (children of that day were less precocious and more like children than they are now), too free from vanity and self-consciousness to be aware that Jack had any other feeling for her than a brotherly affection, and it was equally evident that at present, at any rate, Fairy’s affection for Jack was of precisely the same character as her sisterly love for her foster-brother. Seeing this, the shepherd felt his wife was right in saying it would be far better for many reasons that Jack should go away; but he was so lost in thought that he forgot to reply to Fairy’s question, which, after waiting a minute or two, for she was accustomed to John’s slowness of speech, she repeated. “No, my child, no, I am sure it was no fault of yours; don’t think any more about it. Here comes Jack with Mr. Leslie; I will go in and hear what the doctor says. Ask Mr. Leslie to wait in the kitchen for a minute, if he does not mind,” and the shepherd went indoors to hear the doctor’s report just as Jack and Mr. Leslie appeared. [Illustration: “‘COME, CHILD, YOU HAVE HAD NO SUPPER YET.’” _See “The Shepherd’s Fairy,” p. 219._]