Well , you can see their houses by dark , but you ca n't see them by day , for they are the colour of night , and I never heard of any one yet who could see night in the daytime . This does not mean that they are black , for night has its colours just as day has , but ever so much brighter . Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with a light behind them . The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses , and it is quite the loveliest of all royal residences , but the queen sometimes complains because the common people will peep in to see what she is doing . They are very inquisitive folk , and press quite hard against the glass , and that is why their noses are mostly snubby . The streets are miles long and very twisty , and have paths on each side made of bright worsted . The birds used to steal the worsted for their nests , but a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the other end . -LSB- Illustration : The fairies are exquisite dancers -RSB- One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they never do anything useful . When the first baby laughed for the first time , his laugh broke into a million pieces , and they all went skipping about . That was the beginning of fairies . They look tremendously busy , you know , as if they had not a moment to spare , but if you were to ask them what they are doing , they could not tell you in the least . They are frightfully ignorant , and everything they do is make-believe . They have a postman , but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box , and though they have beautiful schools , nothing is taught in them ; the youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress , and when she has called the roll , they all go out for a walk and never come back . It is a very noticeable thing that , in fairy families , the youngest is always chief person , and usually becomes a prince or princess ; and children remember this , and think it must be so among humans also , and that is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new frills on the basinette . You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts of things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do -- to stand up at sitting-down time , and to sit down at stand-up time , for instance , or to wake up when she should fall asleep , or to crawl on the floor when she is wearing her best frock , and so on , and perhaps you put this down to naughtiness . But it is not ; it simply means that she is doing as she has seen the fairies do ; she begins by following their ways , and it takes about two years to get her into the human ways . Her fits of passion , which are awful to behold , and are usually called teething , are no such thing ; they are her natural exasperation , because we do n't understand her , though she is talking an intelligible language . She is talking fairy . The reason mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean , before other people know , as that ` Guch ' means ` Give it to me at once , ' while ` Wa ' is ` Why do you wear such a funny hat ? ' is because , mixing so much with babies , they have picked up a little of the fairy language .
-LSB- Illustration : A fairy ring -RSB- Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue , with his hands clutching his temples , and he has remembered a number of their phrases which I shall tell you some XXXXX if I do n't forget .
Guch Wa baby-sister basinette colours day daytime fall first years