THERE was once a fairy who took a great fancy to a tiny white lamb. He really was a dear little creature, and I don’t wonder she fell in love with him. She used often to come and visit him in the meadow where he lived with his mother, and she was very anxious to take him to a fairy party some evening. The little lamb was shy. “What do you do at the parties?” he asked.
“Oh, dance mostly,” said the fairy.
But the little lamb explained that he didn’t know how to dance.
“I will soon teach you,” said the fairy.
So she came every evening when her day’s work was done and showed the little lamb how to dance, and he soon learned to skip about quite nicely.
At last a day came when the fairy took him off to the party, but his mother made him promise to come back the next morning. She knew the ways of the fairies.
He enjoyed himself tremendously.
[100]All the fairies admired him very much. They thought his coat so beautifully white and soft, they loved his little black nose and quaint woodeny legs. He gave them all rides on his back in turn (even the Fairy Queen had one), and when the time for dancing came he did very well indeed and astonished them all with his pretty steps. When he left, the Fairy Queen presented him with a garland of daisies. “They are fairy flowers,” she said. “They will never fade, and so long as you wear them you will remain young.”
When the lamb got home he had great tales to tell about his happy adventures, so that he became quite a celebrity, and every one made such a fuss of him that he got rather proud and silly, and after a very short time would ha............