you could
see nothing of her from head to foot for the swarm of little babies.

But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of all,
and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly and low,
such things as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked up
into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep from
pure love.

And when he woke she was telling the children a story. And what story
did she tell them? One story she told them, which begins every Christmas
Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever; and, as she went on,
the children took their thumbs out of their mouths and listened quite
seriously; but not sadly at all; for she never told them anything sad;
and Tom listened too, and never grew tired of listening. And he listened
so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was
nursing him still.

"Don't go away," said little Tom. "This is so nice. I never had any one
to cuddle me before."

"Don't go away," said all the children; "you have not sung us one song."

"Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be?"

"The doll you lost! The doll you lost!" cried all the babies at once.

So the strange fairy sang:--

_I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears,
But I never could find where she lay._

_I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day:
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away,
And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet, for old sakes' sake she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world._

What a silly song for a fairy to sing!

And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!

Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate's
Arguments in the sea-land down below.

"Now," said the fairy to Tom, "will you be a good boy for my sake, and
torment no more sea-beasts till I come back?"

"And you will cuddle me again?" said poor little Tom.

"Of course I will, you little