1il.] THE SILVER FAIRIES. 129

 

of the family. took a higher and nobler view, and
wished they might all be made better instead of
richer, which would have-been a very proper and
praiseworthy proceeding on-their part, yet the truth
must be told; and the truth was that the council
of three all agreed, first and foremost, that they would
certainly ask the fairies to improve their position in
the way of worldly substance. >

After all, there was nothing very wrong or very
extraordinary in such a wish. No one who has ever
‘kept house’ can be unaware of the fact that bills are
things which increase upon you as time goes on, and
that one never has quite enough money to settle them
without inconvenience. Rates and taxes, too, have an
awkward habit of requiring to be paid just when you
want to do something else with the cash you happen
to be possessed of, and numerous little expenses are
always coming upon you when you least expect them.
Therefore I hold it to have been not only far from
unreasonable, but exceedingly natural, that the object
of getting more money should have been one of the
first that presented itself to the minds of our friends
as desirable of accomplishment.

Even Dolly fell in with this view when seriously
put before her by the two elder members of the family
conclave, although at first her ideas had rather flown
in another direction, and she had imagined her grand-
father free from the rheumatics of which he had so
often complained of late, Martha relieved of a certain
lowness of spirits on which she was wont to dwell much
at times, and herself—but I don’t think Dolly had
arrived at imagining or wishing anything for herself

K