Page:Fairies I have met.djvu/125

 He picked up the torn pieces of his wing and wondered if he could mend them. But he soon saw that it was impossible, so he folded them up carefully and laid them inside the rose-petals; and ever afterwards there was a faint tinge of pink deep down in the heart of the rosebud.

For a long time, long after the rosebud had been tied up with a sprig of fern and put in the window, the poor little fairy went on moaning and sighing over the loss of his wing. He was still sighing when a little girl came into the shop. If the fairy had not been hiding among the petals of his rosebud he would have seen at once that she was the kind of little girl that the fairies always love; a little girl with bright eyes and a laughing face—altogether a very nice little girl. She pointed to the white rosebud and said—

"I want to buy that rosebud, please, for Granny's birthday."

In another minute she was walking along the street with the rosebud in her fat hand.

Then the fairy crept up from the heart of the rose and looked over the edge of the petals. The little girl saw him at once and was not at all surprised.

"There you are!" she said. "I wondered when you would look out. Of course I knew there was a fairy in the rosebud, or I wouldn't have bought it. It would have been no use, you see."

"What a very nice little girl!" thought the fairy. "She seems to have a great deal of sense."

The little girl went on: "Poor thing, I see your wing has been torn off. That nearly always happens to the 107