Willie’s Education. 13

“No, thank you, Mrs Wilson,” answered Willie ;
“but I don’t like that story at all.” ~

“T’m sorry for that. I thought I should be
sure to please you this time; it is one I never told
you before, for I had quite forgotten it myself till
this very afternoon. Why don’t you like it?”

“Because he was .a cheat. He couldn’t do the
things; it was only the fairy’s wand that did them.”

“But he was such a good lad, and had been so
kind to the fairy.”

_ “That makes no difference. He wasn’t good.

And the fairy wasn’t good either, or she wouldn’t
have set him to do such wicked things.”

“They weren’t wicked things. They were all
first-rate—everything that he made—better than
any one else could make them.”

“But he didn’t make them. There wasn’t one
of those poor fellows he cheated that wasn’t a
better man than he. The worst of them could do
something with his own hands, and I don’t believe
he could do anything, for if he had ever tried he
would have hated to be such a sneak. He cheated
the king, too, and the princess, and everybody.
Oh! shouldn’t I like to have been there, and to
have beaten him wand and all! For somebody
might have been able to make the things better
still, if he had only known how.”

Mrs Wilson was disappointed—perhaps a little
ashamed that she had not thought of this before ;