"
"And what do you tell them?" asked Phil, eagerly.
"All sorts of nice things."
"Do you tell them all they want to know?"
"Oh no," laughed the fairy, with a silvery little voice like a
canary-bird's. "We cannot do that, for we do not know enough to be able
to: some children are much wiser than we. I dare say you are."
"Indeed I am not," said Phil, a little sadly; "there are so many things
that puzzle me. I thought that perhaps, as you came from the stars, you
knew something of astronomy."
"What a long, long word that is!" laughed the fairy again. "But we are
wind fairies; and yet the Father of the Winds is called Astraeus: that
sounds something like your long word, does it not?"
"It sounds more like Astrea, and that means a star."
"Why, where did you learn so much?"
"I saw it in a big book called a dictionary."
"Another long word. Doesn't your head ache?"
"Sometimes, not now. I have not any books now, except picture-books."
"Did you ever have?"
"Oh yes; when papa was living we had books and pictures and many
beautiful things; but there was a great fire, and all sorts of trouble,
and now I have only Lisa. But Lisa does not understand as papa did; it
was he showed me that word in the dictionary."
"Oh, don't say that great ugly word again! Shall I tell my friends to
make some more music?"
"Yes, please.
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