PART I

A QUEER GODMOTHER

It was the First of April. The weather could not make up its mind whether to be tearful or gay. So, after changing three times, and deciding at last that it was not grown-up to cry, the sun dried up the tear-drops and beamed down on everything and everybody.

"Isn't it a shame, Wilfrid, to have to prepare lessons when it's such a fine afternoon?" exclaimed Norah. She rose from the study table and looked longingly out of the French window to where the crocuses on the lawn seemed to be having the best of it.

"Don't be lazy," replied her brother. "Just come and help me with this sum when I tell you."

"I'm not going to do as you tell me. If you were grown up--say fifteen--it would be different; but you're only a year older than me--not even nine yet--and yet you----"

"Halloa!" interrupted Wilfrid with a low whistle, as he strolled towards the window. "Look at that's legs."

"Which's?" inquired Norah, gazing in the direction he pointed.

"Them's."

"What's?" she asked eagerly, looking around.

"None! Well, you _are_ an April fool!" exclaimed Wilfrid with scornful glee as he resumed his seat; "that's the second time to-day!"

"And you're a very rude boy, and you're not allowed to call me horrid names like that," said Norah with dignity; "and I won't be teased always."

With a very offended look, she set to work on her copy-book.

"Lend me your paint-box when we've finished our lessons, will you, Norah dear?" said Wilfrid, after a short pause.

"I can't," she replied, without looking up.

"Why?"

"I don't know why, but I can't."

"Cat in the manger! You've got nothing you want to paint, as I have."

There was a longer pause, during which they both scribbled away, and scratched, and spluttered, whilst their tongues moved silently from side to side outside their parted lips, left to right, following the direction of each new line.

Then Norah heaved a sigh and remarked--

"Wilfrid, isn't Cinderella lovely?"

"Yes, as girls go."

"Oh, how I wish we lived in those times, when there were fairy godmothers and things!" exclaimed Norah rapturously; then she added with a sigh--

"Aunt Leonora is my godmother, but she never gives me anything, and the godmothers in the fairy stories always give heaps of things."

"You can't expect great fat podges like that to be like fairy godmothers, you silly!"

"But she ought to like giving things. How nice it is to give presents and be thanked!"

"Yes; it's nice to give presents--when they are cheap. Perhaps," continued her brother in a wise voice,--"perhaps Aunt Leonora can't afford it if she isn't rich!"

"Cinderella's godmother never seemed to consider the price of anything. I wish--oh, how I wish----"

"Oh, how I wish you'd be quiet and help me with this sum. You remember your tables better than I do, but you needn't be jolly cocky about it all the same."

Norah wasn't listening to him. Her mind was far away from lessons. She was thinking, if she had her choice, what she would like to be, what she would like to do, and eat, and, above all, what she would like to wear. "If only I had a fairy godmother, I----"

"Rubbish!" exclaimed Wilfrid, growing cross, and frowning as he watched her moving restlessly about the room.

"I--of course, I wouldn't refuse her anything. Fairy godmothers generally appear at first disguised as old women, and ask for something, such as a drink of water, or beg you to carry a load of wood or whatever they happen to have in hand. So I should be ready to do anything and give anything, and earn my big reward."

"Oh, shurrup!" growled her brother. "Much better lend me your paint-box."

But she didn't hear him; taken up with her fancies she continued excitedly--

"I know what I'll do. I'll try and tempt her to come. Perhaps I may even have a fairy godmother without knowing it!"

And she began to dance about, singing--

"Tra-la-la, fairy godmother, Come to me now, I pray; Visit a little girl who is longing for you And will do anything you want. Tra-la-la, fairy godmother, come."

It wasn't very good poetry, but Norah hadn't time to polish it up.

"Oh, I say! How can I do my lessons with all this going on?" exclaimed Wilfrid. And flinging his things together he bounced out of the room and banged the door behind him.

Norah wasn't sorry he was gone, and danced once more all round the room singing; then knelt down, and, stretching out her arms towards the crocuses which were so stiff and upright in their indifference, she said plaintively--

"Come, dear fairy godmother, I want you!"

And lo! between Norah and the window there suddenly appeared a little old woman in a long cloak, whose features were hidden by the large hood she wore.

"Oh!" exclaimed Norah, almost breathless in her astonishment and delight.

"I have come," said the stranger in cracked, quavering tones.

"I'm so glad to see you," replied Norah politely, too excited to feel shy.

"I--your fairy godmother--am here to test you and see if you are really worthy. See this slate which I have brought under my cloak. Every little lady should be able to do arithmetic right. Can you do this sum?"

"How funny, godmother dear!" said Norah, looking at it. "We are just learning these. It's a difficult one, but I'll try."

In a few moments she had done the sum and proved it correct.

"Very good," said the fairy, with a grunt of satisfaction.

"Will you take a drink of water?" now asked the hospitable Norah eagerly. "Do."

"No, thank you. But I may take something else. Tell me, what of all your treasures do you like most?"

"Oh, my paint-box!"

"I knew it; I am glad you tell the truth."

"How did you know it?" asked Norah in surprise.

"I am your fairy godmother. I'll take that paint-box, please."

Norah brought it and gave it to her with the greatest pleasure, and pressingly inquired if she might carry anything anywhere. But that was not required. Then she stood waiting expectantly. And her heart seemed to turn a somersault of delight when her fairy godmother spoke the following words:--

"I am satisfied. Now you may wish for whatever you like. But you must make up your mind before I count three."

Norah's eyes had followed her glance at the clock, which pointed to one minute to three; but her mind, from the flutter of excitement she was in, became a complete blank.

"One!" said the fairy solemnly.

This brought the little goddaughter to her senses, and she began to mutter confusedly--

"Shall I wish for a gold carriage, like Cinderella's, or a pet lamb, with a blue ribbon and a bell round its neck, or a frock embroidered in diamonds, or----"

"Two!" said the fairy.

"No," murmured Norah hurriedly. "If I were a queen, I could order those things and everything else. I wish"--the clock struck three--"I were a----"

"Three!" called out the fairy.

"----a Queen!" screamed Norah, just the second after.

"Too late!" said the fairy. "Farewell!" And she moved towards the door.

Norah's eyes filled with tears. "Please come back!" she pleaded.

"I can't."

"Oh, why can't you?"

"I don't know why, but I can't," replied the little old woman.

This sounded strangely in Norah's ears, and what sounded stranger still were the next words she heard uttered; these were simply--

"Thanks, awfully!"

Then Norah exclaimed at once, "That's Wilfrid's voice!" She pushed aside the hood. "Why, you're Wilfrid!" she cried, amazed.

"And you're April Billy!" he shouted with glee, throwing off the long cloak. "You said you'd do anything and give anything for a reward, and now you've had to do so without one!" And, bursting out laughing, he ran off with the sum and the paint-box.

Norah sat down on a footstool and burst out crying. She was angry and disappointed, and she sobbed bitterly as she thought how she had been tricked into doing Wilfrid's horrid sum, how she had been made to give away her treasured paint-box which he had envied for months, and, worst of all a thousand times, how she had no fairy godmother after all!