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What we most of all wanted a fairy godmother for was about our “homes.” There was no kind of play we liked better than playing at houses and new homes. But no matter where we made our “home,” it was sure to be disturbed. If it was indoors, and we made a palace under the big table, as soon as ever we had got it nicely divided into rooms according to where the legs came, it was certain to be dinner-time, and people put their feet into it. The nicest house we ever had was in the out-house; we had it, and kept it quite a secret, for weeks. And then the new load of wood came and covered up everything, our best oyster-shell dinner-service and all.

Any one can see that it is impossible really to fancy anything when you are constantly interrupted. You can’t have any fun out of a railway train stopping at stations, when they take all your carriages to pieces because the chairs are wanted for tea; any more than you can play properly at Grace Darling in a life-boat, when they say the old cradle is too good to be knocked about in that way.

It was always the same. If we wanted to play at Thames Tunnel under the beds, we were not allowed; and the day we did Aladdin in the store-closet, old Jane came and would put away the soap, just when Aladdin could not possibly have got the door of the cave open.

It was one day early in May–a very hot day for the time of year, which had made us rather cross–when Sandy came in about four o’clock, smiling more broadly even than usual, and said to Richard and me, “I’ve got a fairy godmother, and she’s given us a field.”

Sandy was very fond of eating, especially sweet things. He used to keep back things from meals to enjoy afterwards, and he almost always had a piece of cake in his pocket. He brought a piece out now, and took a large mouthful, laughing at us with his eyes over the top of it.

“What’s the good of a field?” said Richard.

“Splendid houses in it,” said Sandy.

“I’m quite tired of fancying homes,” said I. “It’s no good; we always get turned out.”

“It’s quite a new place,” Sandy continued; “you’ve never been there,” and he took a triumphant bite of the cake.

“How did you get there?” asked Richard.

“The fairy godmother showed me,” was Sandy’s reply.

There is such a thing as nursery honour. We respected each other’s pretendings unless we were very cross, but I didn’t disbelieve in his fairy godmother. I only said, “You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” to snub him for making a secret about his field.

Sandy is very good-tempered. He only laughed and said, “Come along. It’s much cooler out now. The sun’s going down.”

He took us along Gipsy Lane. We had been there once or twice, for walks, but not very often, for there was some horrid story about it which rather frightened us. I do not know what it was, but it was a horrid one. Still we had been there, and I knew it quite well. At the end of it there is a stile, by which you go into a field, and at the other end you get over another stile, and find yourself in the high road.

“If this is our field, Sandy,” said I, when we got to the first stile, “I’m very sorry, but it really won’t do. I know that lots of people come through it. We should never be quiet here.”

Sandy laughed. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t get over the stile; he went through a gate close by it leading into a little sort of bye-lane that was all mud in winter and hard cart-ruts in summer. I had never been up it, but I had seen hay and that sort of thing go in and come out of it.