The Fairy looked at Rob and sighed. “Little friend,” he said, “I love you dearly. I would gladly make you happy. But I have yet one more thing to ask of you. Think of it! Even now I am shut under a White Man’s roof,--I, an Indian Fairy! So many years in a foreign wigwam, walled in a dark, skyless well! Oh! Let me go back to the green wood. Let me be free once more like the rabbits and the squirrels. Will you set me free, even though it means that you will never see me again?” Rob looked at the Fairy and his lip trembled. “I hoped”--he began. But he took a long breath and said to himself, “I will not be selfish. I will be kind and do as I would be done by.” Then he spoke aloud. “Tell me how I may set you free, dear Fairy, and I will do it.” “Ah, my kind friend!” cried the Fairy, “I knew you would be generous! This, then, you shall do for me. I will sleep to-night in your chamber, and to-morrow, when the sun is high, you shall take up the ferns out of the flower-pot, these ferns all moist with the water of the Indian spring. You shall take them up, and me with them,--though you will not see me after daylight,--and carry them to the woods whence you took them. And when you set them back in the ground of the forest where they grew, then I shall be free, free, free! Oh, dear boy, will you do this for me?” “Yes, I will do this for you,” said Rob gravely. “Thanks, thanks!” cried the Fairy. “And now, the night is almost done. I think I feel the daylight coming. You will see me no more. But I shall be sleeping soundly under the fern. And do you likewise go to rest in your little bed. Look! You are shivering with cold! But to-morrow do not forget your promise.” “I will not forget,” said Rob, feeling indeed very cold and shivery. He crept away to his little bed, and was soon sound asleep, warm and comfy. III It was late when Rob woke the next morning. At first he thought that the adventure with the Indian Fairy must have been a dream. But as soon as he sat up in bed he saw the tin pail on the floor beside the window-seat, and the fern moist and green in the flower-pot. So he knew that it must all have been true. But he could not see the Fairy himself, though he knew that the little fellow must be snugly curled up under the green fronds of the fern. When he came down to the breakfast table his father and mother were talking earnestly about something. “It is a wonder he wasn’t killed!” said his Mamma, shuddering. “Why did you ever show him that dreadful well?” “I shall have the cover screwed down,” said Mr. Evans. “It really isn’t safe. Hello, Son! You walked in your sleep again last night, did you know it? I suppose you don’t remember. But Mamma found one of your slippers outside the library door this morning, and Katie found the other on the cellar stairs. And Rob! _The cover of the old well was open!_ However did you lift it?” “I don’t remember how I lifted it,” said Rob, quite truthfully, and he looked dazed.