"'Facts for men, fancies for girls,' he would say; for he had a way of setting up one thing against another, as if nothing could stand alone. Thus he would say the oddest things with the gravest face, and would set me crying with a look like a harlequin.
"But although he laughed at my 'fancies,' I could not but notice he was always getting me to tell them, yet as if for some end of his own which I never could discover; for often when he had set me going in this way, I could feel myself pushed forth from him, as if I were the antenna of some insect with which he was exploring unknown regions, and making in his own wise head conclusions with which I had nothing to do.
"Then he was always fond of having me with him, and had always a new name for me, which I liked because he gave it to me, although I could never see its significance. Now I was his witch-hazel, though I never knew what springs I found for him. Now I was his ger-falcon, but could never see what game he loosed me at, although, certainly, no falcon was ever kept more closely hooded.
"Very different was the confidence I had in him; for whatever was in my mind, I was sure to go to him, and he was always ready to satisfy me. There was nothing so strange that I wished to see, but he could at once tell me, with the most explicit directions, where I could find it; but when I returned, as I almost invariably did, without success, the only explanation he would give was, that I had not found the place. Many a fool's errand of this kind he sent me upon, from which I came back as wise as I went. But one thing he told me which turned out exactly as he said, and it may prove so with others which are a puzzle to me to this day.
"One day, when I had been reading about the fairies until I had the greatest desire in the world to see them, I went to my oracle, whom I found sitting beside the stream above the mill, for our father was a miller, and this had been our favorite spot from my earliest recollection. He was looking at the water, apparently thinking of something else; but when he saw me coming, he appeared absorbed in a book, which I observed was upside down.
"'Tell me really and truly,' said I, 'do you think such creatures as fairies actually exist?'