Page:Fairies I have met.djvu/123



AM going to tell you now about a fairy who lost one of his wings. His home was in a white rosebud, which one would imagine to be a nice, safe, comfortable home for a fairy to have. And yet it was while he was in the white rosebud that the terrible accident happened which left him with only one wing.

All would have been well if he had stayed in the country. But one day a man came with scissors and snipped the white rosebud off the tree, and packed it in cotton-wool, and sent it off to London. Of course the fairy had to go too, and a very uncomfortable journey he had. There were a number of other flowers packed in the same box, and in each flower there was a fairy; so they were all able to grumble together. But you can't grumble with any real comfort when you are packed very tightly, and have to talk through a good deal of cotton-wool.

At last the journey was over, and the rosebud was taken out of the cotton-wool and put in water. Then the fairy crept up from the heart of the rosebud, and put his head over the edge of the petals and looked about him.

There were flowers all round him: flowers in pots, flowers in glasses, flowers lying on the table, flowers in baskets, and great bunches of flowers in the big window. The truth was that the rosebud was in a flower-shop, but he did not know this. He only knew that it was very 105