Page:Fairies I have met.djvu/124

FAIRIES I HAVE MET pleasant to be again in a place that was full of flowers and fairies.

He thought he was going to enjoy himself; but that was because he did not know how cruelly fairies are sometimes treated in flower-shops. The people who arrange the flowers have a horrible way of trying to kill the fairies; and this is what they do. They take a dreadful, sharp piece of wire and poke It through the very heart of the flower, and then fasten it tightly round the stem! You will see at once that nothing is more likely to hurt a fairy than this. Indeed, he would certainly be killed, if it were not almost impossible to kill a fairy.

The little rosebud-fairy was lying comfortably curled up, deep down among the white petals of the rose, when suddenly he saw coming through the walls of his home a sharp glittering point!

"Oh dear!" he cried, trying to scramble out of the way.

But that was no use, the glittering point came nearer and nearer.

"Oh dear—oh dear!" he cried again. "Where is it coming to? Oh—it's coming this way—the horrible thing. Oh—oh—oh!"

It was no wonder that he cried out. The dreadful wire had caught one of his beautiful gossamer wings, and dragged it, and torn it, till there was nothing left of it but some little shreds of fluttering gauze.

"What shall I do?" he wailed. "How can I fly with only one wing, and what is the use of a fairy that can't fly? What shall I do?" 106