'Oh, I don't mind in the _least_!' Priscilla hastened to assure her; and then she told the old woman all her family's faults, and the trial it was to bear with them and go on trying to induce them to mend their ways. 'And papa is getting worse than ever,' she concluded dolefully; 'only fancy, this very morning he called me a little prig!' 'Tut, tut!' said the fairy sympathetically, 'deary, deary me! So he called you _that_, did he?--"a little prig"! And _you_, too! Ah, the world's coming to a pretty pass! I suppose, now, your papa and the rest of them have got it into their heads that you are too young and too inexperienced to set up as their adviser--is that it?' 'I'm afraid so,' admitted Priscilla; 'but we mustn't blame them,' she added gently, 'we must remember that they don't know any better--mustn't we, ma'am?' 'You sweet child!' said the old lady with enthusiasm; 'I must see if I can't do something to help you, though I'm not the fairy I used to be--still, there are tricks I can manage still, if I'm put to it. What you want is something that will prove to them that they ought to pay more attention to you, eh?--something there can be no possible mistake about?' 'Yes!' cried Priscilla eagerly, 'and--and--how would it be if you changed them into something else, just to _show_ them, and then I could ask for them to be transformed back again, you know?' 'What an ingenious little thing you are!' exclaimed the fairy; 'but, let us see--if you came home and found your cruel papa doing duty as the family hatstand, or strutting about as a Cochin China fowl----' 'Oh, _yes_; and I'd feed him every day, till he was sorry!' interrupted the warmhearted little girl impulsively. 'Ah, but you're so hasty, my dear. Who would write all the clever articles and tales to earn bread and meat for you all?--fowls can't use a pen. No, we must find a prettier trick than that--there _was_ one I seem to remember, long, long ago, performing for a good little ill-used girl, just like you, my dearie, just like you! Now what was it? some gift I gave her whenever she opened her lips----' 'Why, _I_ remember--how funny that you should have forgotten! Whenever she opened her lips, roses, and diamonds, and rubies fell out. That would be the very thing! Then they'd _have_ to attend to me! Oh, do be a kind old fairy and give me a gift like that--do, _do_!' 'Now, don't be so impetuous! You forget that this is not the time of year for roses, and, as for jewels, well, I don't think I can be very far wrong in supposing that you open your lips pretty frequently in the course of the day?' 'Alick does call me a "mag,"' said Priscilla; 'but that's wrong, because I never speak without having something to say. I don't think people ought to--it may do so _much_ harm; mayn't it?'