CHRISTMAS IN SWITZERLAND. 31

father are not to be seen every day in the week, I can assure
you. It was altogether such a happy change from the condi-
_tion in which they had left the cottage in the morning, that
they hardly knew how to believe their own eyes.

“Qh, grandfather!’ exclaimed the child, “the Fairy, the
dear, good, kind Fairy! I know it is all her doing. How I
should like to thank her!”

«So you shall, Marie,” said a pleasant voice at that moment ;
and, looking out of the window, they saw the Forest Fairy
in her squirrel carriage standing at the garden gate. “You
may thank me, Marie,” she went on to say, “but you may
thank yourself, too. All that I have done for you and for your
good grandfather to-day has been done for your sake, because
you have a tender, loving heart, and a contented disposition,
so that it is a real pleasure to make you happy. If it had not
been so, I could have done nothing for you, because we

Fairies have only power to help grateful, loving people, who
try to help themselves and each other. You have done this,
and you have been a good and attentive child to your old
grandfather, and so you see there has come a reward to you
when you did not expect it.”

And the Fairy smiled, oh, so sweetly! upon Marie, and then
she kissed her hand to her, and cracked her little whip, ‘the
handle of which was of the whitest ivory, and the lash made of
skeins of gold thread ; and off darted the squirrels and carried
their mistress back to the green forest and the ancient beech.

And from that day forward Marie and her grandfather

. found that everything went well with them, so that they

lived together as happily as possible, and always remembered
with joy and gratitude that merry Christmas dinner under
the Fairy’s Beech.