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280 to Fairyland. She was the only mortal who had ever been so distinguished. Among the fairies she was an authority on the subject of the wickedness of the world (though in truth she knew very little indeed about it), and all questions that related to the world were referred to her for her decision, which was final. For I should have told you that although my fairies exercised an influence over the destinies of mortals, they did not mix with them. They kept themselves to themselves: they were not obliged to do so, but they hated wickedness, and the world was very wicked.

Well, the Fairy Kate was relating some of her experiences, and the other fairies were affected almost to tears at the revelations she made. Not that the Fairy Kate's revelations would have shocked you and me very desperately, but the other fairies had no idea of the wickedness of which the world is capable, and listened aghast to matters which we gross mortals look upon with little or no disfavour. Indeed, the Fairy Kate did not enter very deeply into the subject of her remarks, for she had only an amiable, half-instructed good girl's knowledge of them, and she spoke according to her twilight.

She said, for instance, that whole nations devoted themselves to each other's annihilation for reasons which would not operate to produce a coolness between two private individuals. But then she forgot that a nation consists, perhaps, of fifty million private individuals, and that an affront offered to such a nation is fifty million times as great as the same affront would be if directed against an individual member of it. She also said that when people gave alms they required that