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company who had filled the room a moment before, arose and floated away around the Prince and Princess, and the room was left empty and cold, and little Jack was left alone.

A whole year had passed away, and Jack was turned seven years old. A whole long year, and he had heard or seen nothing of his fairy friends.

He had stirred the fire, he had watched the water, but in vain. They had gone, he feared, never to return, and he was fast beginning to think it must all have been a strange dream.

Christmas had come round again, but this was a very different Christmas to last year’s, for little Jack was very ill, sick unto death, and lay in bed and could not move. His mother went out to no parties, for all day and night she sat by her little boy’s bedside. How she cried! Jack could not quite understand why, for, when he was not in pain, he liked very well to lie in bed, with his mother sitting beside him to pet and amuse him.

Christmas week passed, and New Year’s-eve came. His mother was so weary with watching, that she could keep awake no longer, and slept in spite of herself, in the arm-chair at the bedside.