THERE were once some people who went away to the seaside, and shut up their house and sent away all the servants, and then left the poor flowers in their green-house to die of thirst. The fairies were very sorry for the poor pretty things.

“Can’t we help them?” they said, and they flew round the green-house, looking at the flowers through the glass, till at last they found a broken pane in the door. Then the fairies each got a dew-drop and flew in with it, but the poor flowers were so thirsty that the dew-drops were of no use to them.

“Oh, dear!” the fairies said, “however can we help them?”

They talked and talked, but could think of no way. But the most beautiful of the fairies, who was also the wisest, flew away.

“How unfeeling she is!” said the others.

Next day the flowers in the green-house drooped more and more, and they were just murmuring “Water” almost with their last breath, when the little boy from next door climbed over the wall. He looked through the glass at the flowers, and then went in and watered them. And this he did every day.

“I wonder what made him think of it,” said all the fairies.

“Why, I did, of course,” said the wisest and most beautiful. “While you were all chattering I went and sat on his pillow, and whispered to him all about the poor flowers next door. He thought it was a dream, but we and the flowers know better.”

So when the people of the house came back from the seaside they found all their flowers alive and well, and this was certainly very much more than they had any right to expect. And the master of the house was so pleased with the kind care the little boy next door had taken of the flowers that he gave them all to him, and got some new ones for himself.

E. Nesbit.

Printed in Bavaria.