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‘Oh, fairy,’ she said at last, ‘I’m afraid that’s just what I did do. I was always thinking how good I was and putting everybody–papa, mamma, Alick, Betty, Aunt Margarine, Cathie, Belle, and even poor cousin Dick–right! I have been a horrid little hateful prig, and that’s why all the jewels were rubbish. But, oh, shall I have to go on talking sham diamonds and things all the rest of my life?’

‘That,’ said the fairy, ‘depends entirely on yourself. You have the remedy in your own hands–or lips.’

‘Ah, you mean I needn’t talk at all? But I must–sometimes. I couldn’t bear to be dumb as long as I lived–and it would look so odd, too!’

‘I never said you were not to open your lips at all. But can’t you try to talk simply and naturally–not like little girls or boys in any story-books whatever–not to “show off” or improve people; only as a girl would talk who remembers that, after all, her elders are quite as likely as she is to know what they ought or ought not to do and say?’

‘I shall forget sometimes, I know I shall!’ said Priscilla disconsolately.

‘If you do, there will be something to remind you, you know. And by and by, perhaps, as you grow up you may, quite by accident, say something sincere and noble and true–and then a jewel will fall which will really be of value!’

‘No!’ cried Priscilla, ‘no, please! Oh, fairy, let me off that! If I must drop them, let them be false ones to punish me–not real. I don’t want to be rewarded any more for being good–if I ever am really good!’

‘Come,’ said the fairy, with a much pleasanter smile, ‘you are not a hopeless case, at all events. It shall be as you wish, then, and perhaps it will be the wisest arrangement for all parties. Now run away home, and see how little use you can make of your fairy gift.’

Priscilla found her family still at breakfast.

‘Why,’ observed her father, raising his eyebrows as she entered the room, ‘here’s our little monitor–(or is it monitress, eh, Priscilla?)–back again. Children, we shall all have to mind our p’s and q’s–and, indeed, our entire alphabet, now!’

‘I’m sure,’ said her mother, kissing her fondly, ‘Priscilla knows we’re all delighted to have her home!’

‘I’m not,’ said Alick, with all a boy’s engaging candour.

‘Nor am I,’ added Betty, ‘it’s been ever so much nicer at home while she’s been away!’

Priscilla burst into tears as she hid her face upon her mother’s protecting shoulder. ‘It’s true!’ she sobbed, ‘I don’t deserve that you should be glad to see me–I’ve been hateful and horrid, I know–but, oh, if you’ll only forgive me and love me and put up with me a little, I’ll try not to preach and be a prig any more–I will truly!’

And at this her father called her to his side and embraced her with a fervour he had not shown for a very long time.

* * * * *

I should not like to go so far as to assert that no imitation diamond, ruby, pearl, or emerald ever proceeded from Priscilla’s lips again. Habits are not cured in a day, and fairies–however old they may be–are still fairies; so it did occasionally happen that a mock jewel made an unwelcome appearance after one of Priscilla’s more unguarded utterances. But she was always frightfully ashamed and abashed by such an accident, and buried the imitation stones immediately in a corner of the garden. And as time went on the jewels grew smaller and smaller, and frequently dissolved upon her tongue, leaving a faintly bitter taste, until at last they ceased altogether and Priscilla became as pleasant and unaffected a girl as she who may now be finishing this history.

Aunt Margarine never sent back the contents of that bandbox; she kept the biggest stones and had a brooch made of them, while, as she never mentioned that they were false, no one out of the family ever so much as suspected it.

But, for all that, she always declared that her niece Priscilla had bitterly disappointed her expectations–which was perhaps the truest thing that Aunt Margarine ever said.