Toinette lay quiet, with her head on her mother's breast. Then she
wiped her wet eyes, put her arms around her mother's neck, and told her
all from the very beginning, keeping not a single thing back. The dame
listened with alarm.

"Saints protect us," she muttered. Then feeling Toinette's hands and
head, "Thou hast a fever," she said. "I will make thee a tisane, my
darling, and thou must at once go to bed." Toinette vainly protested;
to bed she went and perhaps it was the wisest thing, for the warm drink
threw her into a long sound sleep and when she woke she was herself
again, bright and well, hungry for dinner, and ready to do her usual
tasks.

Herself--but not quite the same Toinette that she had been before.
Nobody changes from bad to better in a minute. It takes time for that,
time and effort, and a long struggle with evil habits and tempers. But
there is sometimes a certain minute or day in which people begin to
change, and thus it was with Toinette. The fairy lesson was not lost
upon her. She began to fight with herself, to watch her faults and try
to conquer them. It was hard work; often she felt discouraged, but she
kept on. Week after week and month after month she grew less selfish,
kinder, more obliging than she used to be. When she failed and her old
fractious temper got the better of her, she was sorry and begged every
one's pardon so humbly that they could not but forgive. The mother
began to think that the elves really had bewitched her child. As for
the children they learned to love Toinette as never before, and came to
her with all their pains and pleasures, as children should to a kind
older sister. Each fresh proof of this, every kiss from Jeanneton,
every confidence from Marc, was a comfort to Toinette, for she never
forgot Christmas Day, and felt that no trouble was too much to wipe out