The Fairy Latchkey

“In a mean, dingy house in the midst of a great city, there once lived a cobbler and his apprentice, and together with them in that same house there also lived a certain evil an...

There was once upon a time a poor fisher couple who lived together in a hut upon a lonely beach, and while the husband was absent fishing upon the high seas, the wife earned a s...

On a bleak and rocky coast there once stood a little fishing town, and on the high cliffs above it, looking seaward towards the sunrise, rose the stately pile of an old Abbey ch...

The next day seemed a long time in coming, but come it did. So did Miss Mills. Miss Mills was young and pretty, and she thought herself even prettier than she was. During the pa...

Upon the outskirts of a village there once lived a weaver, who was very skilful at his loom, and wove many fine and beautiful stuffs, while in a wretched cabin out in the fields...

It was August still, and early evening; an evening of balmy airs and dappled skies. Philomène, bedded in bracken, lay nestling at the foot of a mighty pine-tree on the outskirts...

Once upon a time there lived a miller, who because he was a kind-hearted man and as well off as anyone needs to be, had taken pity upon a poor little foundling and had given him...

Philomène’s first day at the Cushats happened to be a Sunday, and after breakfast on the lawn Isolde took her goddaughter to the weekly children’s service. These services were s...

There was once a goose-girl named Kora, who used to herd her master’s geese in a certain field. Now at one end of this field there was a grassy mound, inside which lived a very...

Philomène ran down the garden walk, her mind in a turmoil. Queen Mab was trotting to meet her along the path, and as soon as she caught sight of her pet, she knelt down on the g...

“If you could let me have the right time, I should be obliged to you,” said a voice at her elbow. Philomène started, so that the now dishevelled globe of seeds fell from her han...

There was nothing at all remarkable about her, excepting her name, which was Philomène Isolde, and the fact that a knot of green ribbon had been sewn upon her christening dress;...

“Daddy is calling me, Nurse. Do remember to take the price off the herald angels, and the cornflower calendar with the ten commandments on it will go for a halfpenny. I thought...

If Philomène had not actually a fairy godmother, she had at least the nearest possible approach to one. To begin with, Godmother was beautiful. She had the red hair that artists...

Now when Philomène was still quite a little girl she had had some playfellows whom neither Nurse nor Miss Mills knew anything about, and these were her green dwarfs and Mrs Handy.

No sooner had Philomène returned to the house than Nurse began scolding her for having gone out into the wet. “As if you couldn’t have waited till to-morrow to have a look at yo...

It was on a morning towards the end of June that she awoke with the delightful sensation that her birthday had come at last. Had she not waited a whole year for it? By her plate...

Sweet William had been right when he foretold that Philomène would not see much of the fairy agent at the Cushats, for Isolde devoted herself whole-heartedly to the amusement of...

During the remaining days of that gladsome rose-red June, Philomène went about the house with a face as glad as any sunbeam and as rosy as any flower. Nurse thought that the pro...

It was about this time that Philomène first began to remark a change in her father. He was not at any time a man of many words, but he now became unusually silent even for him....

It was towards the end of September that Philomène returned home. Her godmother was coming up to town also, and they travelled together, so that on that journey there was ginger...

“Nursie, do you believe in ghosts?” This question was put by Philomène as she sat at her dressing-table on the evening of the last of October, while Nurse brushed out her hair....