



Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net









                               FAIRIES AFIELD

                             BY MRS. MOLESWORTH


    WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
    GERTRUDE DEMAIN HAMMOND

    MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
    ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

    1911

    [Illustration]

    MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

    LONDON  BOMBAY  CALCUTTA
    MELBOURNE

    THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

    NEW YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO
    ATLANTA  SAN FRANCISCO

    THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

    TORONTO

       *       *       *       *       *

                  I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

             TO ONE WHO LOVES FAIRY STORIES

             THE REVEREND JOHN CYRIL HOWELL

    155 Sloane Street, S.W.
    _May 8, 1911._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: Pretty Ysenda.]




CONTENTS


                                    PAGE

    "ASK THE ROBIN"                   1

    A MAGIC TABLE                    60

    THE WEATHER MAIDEN              121

    THE ENCHANTED TRUNKS            176



ILLUSTRATIONS


    TO FACE PAGE

    PRETTY YSENDA (P. 66)                           _Frontispiece_

    "IT MAKES ME THINK OF ALL SORTS OF LOVELY
    SUMMER THINGS"                                             8

    WITH A WONDERFUL NOTE OF EXCEEDING JOY, HE
    SPREAD HIS WINGS AND FLEW ROUND THE
    BOWER, RETURNING AGAIN TO PERCH ON THE
    CHILD'S STILL OUTSTRETCHED HAND, AS IF IN
    GRATITUDE                                                 52

    "YOUR MOTIVE WAS PURE KINDNESS--FREE FROM
    ALL SELFISHNESS, THEREFORE YOU SUCCEEDED"                119

    "SO YOU HAVE COME AT LAST, LITTLE MAIDEN"                136

    SHE CAUGHT SIGHT OF A TINY FIGURE PEERING AT
    HER FROM BEHIND THE RUBBISH                              150

    STOPPED AND KISSED IT GENTLY AND RESPECTFULLY            214

    LO AND BEHOLD--COUSIN FELICITY HAD VANISHED              239




"Ask the Robin"


Once upon a time--a fairly long ago time--there lived in a neat little
cottage two young girls who were sisters. If you had gone to see them on
a bright warm summer's day, I daresay you would have envied them and
their life and their lot. For they were pretty and healthy and they
loved each other dearly, and the cottage was charming to look at, in its
dress of clustering roses and honeysuckle and traveller's joy, and other
sweet and beautiful climbing, flowering plants. Furthermore, it stood in
a little garden filled with treasures of different kinds, <DW29>s, of
which there was a great variety, and lilies and mignonette and all the
flowers one loves to see in an old-fashioned garden of the kind. And the
sisters kept it in perfect order, the beds were always raked, there was
never a weed to be seen, the tiny plots of grass were like velvet.

In spring too it was very pretty, when first the snowdrops and then the
crocuses and primroses and violets woke up after their long winter
sleep, and in autumn also there was a show of beauties, dahlias and
chrysanthemums and kitchen pokers and other pretty things of the season.

And indeed, even in winter, the place had its charm, of evergreen shrubs
and bright berries and--till the snow came and made an end of all but
the hardiest plants, the still remaining lovely variegated leaves of
late autumn.

No care or skill was wanting to keep the whole as pretty as could
possibly be, for the sisters' father was a gardener, and from him they
had learnt both love of growing things and knowledge of all needed for
their welfare. And not so very long before this story begins I doubt if
Aria or Linde--these were the girls' names--cared what time of year it
was, for all were happy days to them. Glowing summer, sparkling spring,
rich mellow autumn, even winter, often cold and grey--all brought joy
and gladness, till one sad night terrible sorrow fell upon them. Their
father was drowned on his way home from market, in crossing a swollen