Charlotte was sadly out of spirits. Having ‘countered’ Miss Smedley at breakfast, during some argument or other, by an apt quotation from her favourite classic (the _Fairy Book_), she had been gently but firmly informed that no such things as fairies ever really existed. ‘Do you mean to say it’s all lies?’ asked Charlotte bluntly. Miss Smedley deprecated the use of any such unladylike words in any connexion at all. ‘These stories had their origin, my dear,’ she explained, ‘in a mistaken anthropomorphism in the interpretation of nature. But though we are now too well informed to fall into similar errors, there are still many beautiful lessons to be learned from these myths——’ [Illustration: “MEANWHILE CHARLOTTE AND I CROUCHED IN THE WINDOW-SEAT....”] ‘But how can you learn anything,’ persisted Charlotte, ‘from what doesn’t exist?’ And she left the table defiant, howbeit depressed. ‘Don’t you mind _her_,’ I said consolingly; ‘how can she know anything about it? Why, she can’t even throw a stone properly!’ ‘Edward says they’re all rot, too,’ replied Charlotte doubtfully. ‘Edward says everything’s rot,’ I explained, ‘now he thinks he’s going into the Army. If a thing’s in a book it _must_ be true, so that settles it!’ Charlotte looked almost reassured. The room was quieter now, for Edward had got the dragon down and was boring holes in him with a purring sound; Harold was ascending the steps of the Athenæum with a jaunty air—suggestive rather of the Junior Carlton. Outside, the tall elm-tops were hardly to be seen through the feathery storm. ‘The sky’s a-falling,’ quoted Charlotte softly; ‘I must go and tell the king.’ The quotation suggested a fairy story, and I offered to read to her, reaching out for the book. But the Wee Folk were under a cloud; sceptical hints had embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch _Arthur_—second favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant, and an easy first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of tourney and hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved unfortunate; what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful history of Balin and Balan? ‘And he vanished anon,’ I read: ‘and so he heard an horne blow, as it had been the death of a beast. “That blast,” said Balin, “is blowen for me, for I am the prize, and yet am I not dead.”’ Charlotte began to cry: she knew the rest too well. I shut the book in despair. Harold emerged from behind the arm-chair. He was sucking his thumb (a thing which members of the Reform are seldom seen to do), and he stared wide-eyed at his tear-stained sister. Edward put off his histrionics, and rushed up to her as the consoler—a new part for him.