Читать книгу The Fairy Latchkey онлайн

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“Well,” said Sweet William pleasantly, “have you been reading up much for the examination?”

“No, not much,” returned Philomène, “I really know all that’s in my books already, but I have been trying to remember everything I ever heard about the fairies.”

“You see,” said Sweet William, “the Good People do not like letting children into their secrets who have not first taken the trouble to find out all they can about us for themselves. Now we had better begin, and here are the questions. Number your pages, and pin them together with this thorn when you have finished writing. There is a sun-dial in the next garden, and he has promised to send word when the time is up.”

For the next hour Philomène wrote busily; she did not even look round when Sweet William opened a door opposite to that by which she herself had entered, and spoke to someone outside.

“It was a grasshopper,” said Sweet William, “and he came to say that the hour is over. Poor fellow, he spends his time trying to reach the sun by high hops, and his friend the dial keeps on assuring him that it is of no use, but the grasshopper will not believe him. He thinks it is only that the dial has lost heart and got depressed, from having had “Art is long and time is fleeting” written across him for so many years.”