The Girls Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886 | Page 8

blue satin.
"A shaving-case? But, my dear Fairy, Jack does not shave. How could
you cut that lovely thing up in this way?" said Mrs. Shelley.
"A shaving-case! What is the use of it if he did shave?" asked Willie,
who was of a practical turn of mind.
"The use of it! Why, to keep his shaving-cloths in, of course. Mr. Leslie
has one something like this, only not half so pretty," said Fairy, eyeing
her handiwork with admiration.
"It is much too good for Jack," said Charlie, who had come back from
his pigs.
"Nothing is too good for Jack, is it, mother?" asked Fairy, with an
imperceptible nod at Willie.
"It is very unsuitable, Fairy, and I think it is a pity you cut up that quilt

for it; but come and help me to finish this smock, you idle child, do."
"That dreadful smock! and I know Jack will never, never, never put it
on, though we have pricked our fingers over it for weeks. And John
will be angry, and insist, and Jack will be in a passion, and refuse, and
instead of having a nice happy birthday, poor old Jack will be
miserable. Mother, let's give him the smock to-night, and have the row
over before to-morrow. Run and get me my thimble, Charlie, please,
and Willie, thread my needle for me, and I'll soon help mother to finish
this ugly smock," said Fairy, seating herself with a business-like air as
she folded up the shaving-case in some silk paper.
"Well, it is not a bad plan, Fairy; we will give Jack the smock when he
comes in this evening," said Mrs. Shelley.
"Yes; and I'll keep my present till to-morrow, and that will put him in a
good temper, before we start for our picnic," said Fairy, stitching away
with great energy. An hour later, just as the smock was finished and the
boys were gone to get tea ready, the shepherd entered at the gate
carrying a quantity of wheatears threaded on crow-quills. He looked
vexed, and Mrs. Shelley, who could read her husband's face like a book,
asked what was the matter.
"Why, again Jack has forgotten to attend to those traps for the
wheatears; when I did them myself I caught a hundred in one day; now
I leave them to him I get perhaps eighteen to twenty, because he is too
lazy to dig out the turf and make the traps properly; here are only ten
brace this evening, and they are as plentiful as sparrows just now."
"John, you are a greedy man, and Jack is not lazy; he does not approve
of killing birds; he thinks it is cruel, that is why he has not seen to the
traps, so you must not scold him about it, will you?" said Fairy, looking
up into the shepherd's grave face, as she stroked the white breasts of the
wheatears.
"You had better see to the traps yourself, John; there is always a fuss
about them every summer since you gave them to Jack to attend to.
You know, as Fairy says, he is so fond of birds, and he knows so much

about them too, that he can't bear snaring them."
"Knows so much about them! I should think he did. Why Mr. Leslie
says if Jack had only the means of getting himself some good books, he
would be a first-rate ornithologist, which means a man learned in birds,
John," said Fairy.
She had always called the shepherd John since she could speak, and
Mrs. Shelley and John were quite content that she should do so, as he
was not her father, though Fairy persisted in calling his wife mother, to
Mrs. Shelley's secret joy. They were both greatly attached to their
foster-daughter; as for the shepherd, he never contradicted her in
anything, and though over-strict as his wife thought with his own boys,
he never seemed to think Fairy could do wrong, and had never been
heard even to rebuke her in the mildest way since he found her; and
when Mrs. Shelley remonstrated with him, as she sometimes did, he
excused himself by saying she was not his own child, so he did not feel
the same responsibility about her.
Luckily for Fairy, Mrs. Shelley did not humour her and look upon her
with the same excessive admiration the shepherd and the boys did; they
regarded her as a superior being, and thought her way of queening it
over them perfectly right and natural. Mrs. Shelley loved the child she
had been a mother to tenderly, and was proud of her beauty and
cleverness, and yet, while she constantly impressed on her boys that
Fairy was a lady by birth and therefore in a very different position to
any