When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her.

astonishing splashes of colour

She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

Oh, the cleverness of me!

Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?" Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.

They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can't.

All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag and an umbrella. Michael is an engine driver. Slightly married a lady of title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.