where he was, which was strange for him, for though such a
little boy, he was always eager for a climb and anxious to do whatever
he saw any one else doing. So kind Percy, mindful of Ted's mother's
words, said he would not go either, and stayed with the others, helping
them to tidy up the fairies' house.

"Now," said Ted at last, sitting down on the grass at Mabel's feet, "now
I _sink_ the fairies will be p'eased. It's all kite tidy. Fairies is
always angry if peoples is untidy."

"I thought fairies were always in a good humour," said Percy. "I didn't
know they were ever angry."

"Oh, I think Ted's right," said Mabel. "They are angry with people who
are dirty or untidy. Don't you remember a story about them coming to
work in a house where the kitchen was always left tidy at night? And
they never would come to the next house because it was always in a
mess."

"P'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted.

"I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she replied.

"Do you remember," said Percy, who was lying on the ground staring up at
the sky and the bit of brown mountain peak that could be seen from where
he was, "do you remember, Mab, the story of a little boy that fell
asleep on the top of a mountain, and the fairies spirited him away, and
took him down to their country, down inside the mountain? And he thought
he had only been away--when he came home again, I mean, for they had to
let him out again after a while--he thought he had only been away a day
or two, and, fancy, it had been twenty years! All the children had grown
big, and the young people middle-aged, and the middle-aged people quite
old, and none of them knew him again. He had lost all his childhood.
Wasn't it sad?"

"Yes, _very_" said Mabel; "I remember the story."

"I think it's dedful," said Ted. "I don't like mountains, and I don't
like diants. I'll never go up a mountain, never."

"But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said Percy. "And it wasn't
giants, it was fairies."

"I sink p'raps it was diants," persisted Ted. "I don't like zem. Mr.
Brand is a diant," he added mysteriously, in a low voice.

Percy had been thinking of what Ted's mother had said. Now he felt sure
that it was something to do with Mr. Brand that had frightened the
little fellow. But Mabel did not know about it.

"I like mountains," she said. "Indeed I love them. I am always so glad
to live where I can see their high peaks reaching up into the sky."

"But it wouldn