s I used to long to see a fairy!" sighed Bab to herself;
"and now I really wish she would go away.

"What are you prepared to do about Blackame?--tell me," demanded the
fairy, suddenly.

She made Bab jump, but Bab did not mind that; she was a straightforward
child, and liked to go direct at a thing. She reflected, and then she
faced the difficulty she had got into bravely, and replied in a grave,
resolute way, "Anything you wish."

The fairy looked at her. "Why couldn't you say so before?" she said,
very sharply. "It would have saved all this trouble."

Again Bab felt that it was not fair--she thought the fairy was unfairer
even than Selina; _but_ she was a fairy, and besides that, Bab _had_
brought Blackame down upon them; so she said instantly, not meekly and
humbly; for that was not her way--but in a resolute, hearty manner, that
gave one confidence to see--"Just tell me, and I'll do it."

"_I'll_ tell you," said the fairy quite good-naturedly, "and _you'll_ do
it. That's quite fair. Well now, the thing to do is this: go out in the
evening with a long pole, and knock up high into the branches of the
trees, and glance up and down, holding your dress out, and singing:--

'I'm the girl that brought him in,
Blackame! What a rout!
Little birds that cannot sin.
Drive the wretched fellow out,
Blackame;'

And then you'll see----" but what she was to see Bab never knew;
something touched her, and then rushed with headlong sound through the
window. The fairy was gone, and, stranger still, the bright beautiful
book, with its butterflies and fairies, was gone too.

She looked lazily round her, and, to her surprise, saw Selina standing
at the other end of the table.

"Why are you home so early?"

"Home so early! It's half-past five, if you please. Why, you lazy little
thing, you've been asleep all the time!"

Bab looked at the clock on the mantel-piece, and saw it was a quarter to
six. _How_ quickly the time passes when you are with fairies! She knew
she had not been asleep, because she knew she had had the visit from the
fairy, and she was so anxious to know what would happen next. About
seven o'clock she thought she might go out with a long pole to the tree;
and she supposed the fairies had put the book somewhere, till the birds
should come and drive Blackame out of it, and she hoped very much Mr.
Beresford would not miss his beautiful book till then, when it would be
clear from the bl