THERE was once a Fairy who lived in the hollow part of a quill pen. It was a very pretty palace for a fairy, with half-transparent walls. And hers was a happy life. The only thing that troubled her was that the man who used the pen only wrote logic and grammar and really sensible things.

“Why can’t he write poetry and fairy stories?” she used to say. “Oh, what beautiful things this dull man could write if he only knew that there was a Fairy in his pen!”

So one day when the man who used the pen had gone to a dull lecture, she wrote on the blotting-paper:—“There is a fairy in your pen!” “And now,” she thought, “he will surely let me help him to write poetry and fairy stories.”

But the stupid man thought the children had written the words on his blotting-paper, so he sent them to bed, and the Fairy cried till the ink was quite pale from having so many tears mixed with it.

And the man, finding that his pen wrote worse and worse, threw it into his waste-paper basket. His housekeeper picked it out. “I’ll mend this pen,” she said, “and use it for my books.”

“Oh! now,” thought the Fairy, “someone really is going to write fairy stories and poetry with me.”

But the housekeeper only used the pen for adding up the baker’s and butcher’s bills, and the Fairy got very angry. So she left the quill pen and came to live with me. And I try to be kind to her, and never hurt her feelings by writing logic or grammar or anything really sensible.

E. Nesbit.