Tell me a Story by Mary Louisa Molesworth — Read

"They stole little Bridget / For seven years long; / When she came home again / Her friends were all gone. "

There was once a boy who was a very good sort of a boy, except for two things; or perhaps I should say one thing. I am really not sure whether they were two things, or only two sides of the same thing; perhaps, children, you can decide. It was this. He could not bear his lessons, and his head was _always_ running on fairies. You may say it is no harm to think about fairies, and I do not say that in moderation it is. But when it goes the length of thinking about them so much that you have no thought for anything else, then I think it _is_ harm -- don't you? and I daresay that this had to do with Con's hating his lessons so. Perhaps you will think it was an odd fancy for a boy: it is more often that girls think about fairies, but you must remember that there are a great many kinds of fairies. There are pixies and gnomes, and brownies and cobs, all manner of queer, clever, mischievous, and kindly creatures, besides the pretty, gentle, little people whom one always thinks of as haunting the woods in the summer time, and hiding among the flowers.