"

"In one of their houses," continued Lona, "sits the biggest and fattest
of them--so proud that nobody can see him; and the giants go to his
house at certain times, and call out to him, and tell him how fat he is,
and beg him to make them strong to eat more and grow fat like him."

The rumour at length reached my ears that Blunty had vanished. I saw a
few grave faces among the bigger ones, but he did not seem to be much
missed.

The next morning Lona came to me and whispered,

"Look! look there--by that quince-tree: that is the giant that was
Blunty!--Would you have known him?"

"Never," I answered. "--But now you tell me, I could fancy it might be
Blunty staring through a fog! He DOES look stupid!"

"He is for ever eating those apples now!" she said. "That is what comes
of Little Ones that WON'T be little!"

"They call it growing-up in my world!" I said to myself. "If only she
would teach me to grow the other way, and become a Little One!--Shall I
ever be able to laugh like them?"

I had had the chance, and had flung it from me! Blunty and I were alike!
He did not know his loss, and I had to be taught mine!

CHAPTER XIV. A CRISIS

For a time I had no desire save to spend my life with the Little Ones.
But soon other thoughts and feelings began to influence me. First awoke
the vague sense that I ought to be doing something; that I was not
meant for the fattening of boors! Then it came to me that I was in a
marvellous world, of which it was assuredly my business to discover
the ways and laws; and that, if I would do anything in return for the
children's goodness, I must learn more about them than they could tell
me, and to that end must be free. Surely, I thought, no suppression of
their growth can be essential to their loveliness and truth and purity!
Not in any world could the possibility exist of such a discord between
constitution and its natural outcome! Life and law cannot be so at
variance that perfection must be gained by thwarting development! But
the growth of the Little Ones WAS arrested! something interfered with
it: what was it? Lona seemed the eldest of them, yet not more than
fifteen, and had been long in charge of a multitude, in semblance and
mostly in behaviour merest children, who regarded her as their mother!
Were they growing at all? I doubted it. Of time they had scarcely the
idea; of their own age they knew nothing! Lona herself thought she had
lived always! Full of wisdom and em