DOWN AMONGST THE FAIRIES.

PART II.

FFIE slept the whole night long without ever once awakening, and was quite surprised and bewildered when at last, in the morning, she opened her eyes again; and so indeed she might well be, for the thing that aroused her at last was a most curious little tapping going on all round and round her head, which, when she looked up, startled and confused, she found to proceed from the second of the three fairies who were to set her tasks to her, and who was stooping down over her, boxing her ears with all her might.

'Oh, so you're going to awake at last!' said the fairy. A pretty business I've had with you! I'm sure you must have a skin like a rhinoceros, for I've been slapping you till the blood is tingling in all my fingers. It's amazing how you mortals sleep! But

come--don't sit there staring at me.

Stand up and get

your wits about you. I have something for you to do

immediately.'

And with that the fairy led the way, and Effie followed her, till they came to where a most prodigious number of little shoes were lying, all in a great mass together-shoes of every colour and every shade of colour-more shoes, it seemed to Effie, than could possibly be needed to supply the whole of fairy-land.

'These have just come home from the shoemaker. You will go over them, and put them together in pairs,' the fairy said. 'It will be a very nice little amusement for you, and the easiest thing to do in all the world. Only mind you look sharp, and don't put odd shoes together, as from your stupidity I believe you would be quite capable of doing. Look!—this is the way to begin.' And with the speed of lightning, the fairy picked two little pale-blue shoes out of the great heap, and set them side by side upon the grass. 'Now, set to work, and don't waste time,' she said. 'I shall be back to see that you have finished in a couple of hours.'

And then she went off, and left Effie before the heap of shoes, that was so big that it was really like a little hill.

There were thousands and thousands of shoes. 'I wonder how I am ever to match them all!' Effie thought, and took up one at random, and began to

look about for its fellow.

But it was very nearly as bad as looking for a needle in a bundle of hay! The shoes were so various, and the number of them was so great, that the more she looked at them the more she wondered how either she or anybody else was ever to get them all arranged into pairs. A dozen different shoes did she take up, one after another, and not the fellow could she find to a single one of them. Again and again she would think for a moment that she had matched a shoe; she would search about with a green one in her hand perhaps, and presently would hit upon another green one that seemed to be the very image of it, but no sooner would she have picked it out from among the rest than some minute shade of difference would show itself, either there would be the least possible variation in the colour, or the one little shoe would have a button in front of it, and the other a tassel, or the one would be stitched with green and the other with red, or the one would have a high heel and the other a low heel, or in one of half-a-dozen other ways it would appear on examination that the two shoes didn't belong to each other, and Effie could do nothing but renew her search again and again and again till she was quite dispirited and weary.

After a time, just as she had done yesterday, she fell to crying for very vexation. She saw that it would be quite impossible to accomplish what the fairy had told her to do in the time that was allowed her, for

when a whole hour had passed, she had only out of the whole number matched two solitary pairs of shoes, and so at last (for you must remember that she was an idle little monkey, who had never yet in all her life really tried hard to do anything) she sat down upon the grass almost in a state of despair, and spent the second hour in doing nothing but crying and thinking how miserable she was, till the fairy come back.

Of course when the fairy did come back, she was, as you may imagine, in a pretty passion. She looked at the shoes, and then she looked at Effie, and then she declared that she had never been so much shocked or astonished in all her life.

'I've matched these two pairs, and I'm sure I tried for an hour with all my might, and I couldn't match another one of them,' said Effie, half-frightened, but quite as sulky as she was afraid.

'You tried for an hour, and only succeeded in matching two pairs of shoes!' cried the fairy. 'It's impossible! it's incredible! Look at me, you wicked child!' And with that the fairy began to pick up shoes here and there and in every direction from the mass, as fast as her fingers could move.

She was certainly worth looking at! Quickly as the first fairy had counted the leaves yesterday, that was really nothing compared with the quickness with which this second fairy matched her shoes. Effie's very eyes got dazzled as she looked at her. She skipped about the

mass, hither and thither, up and down, and with every skip she made she got together not only one but halfa-dozen pairs of shoes. Line after line of them she spread out upon the grass, long straight lines of bright coloured little slippers, all in twos and twos, till at the end of a quarter of an hour she had got every shoe paired, and, though she was certainly rather out of breath when her work was completed, yet that was little wonder, for she had run about so much that the only thing to cause any amazement was that she should have any breath left at all.

As soon as she could speak again she turned to Effie, and began to scold her with all her might. She told her that she was the wickedest and idlest and most obstinate child she ever had come across; that it made her quite ill to look at her; that as for pretending she couldn't match the shoes, that was such a transparent falsehood that it wouldn't even take in a baby; that if she thought she was to get off as easily to-day as she had done yesterday she would find herself mistaken; and then, pausing and shaking her head at Effie to such an extent that Effie began to think she would waggle it off, she clapped her hands, and half-a-dozen fairies as quick as thought came running forward, all armed with little birch brooms, and, laughing and kicking up their heels with delight at the prospect of the fun that was before them, they instantly seized on Effie, and tore her frock off her shoulders, and began to