that unhappy recollection. "I think they like me better than they did
then," she would say; but then the thought came, "Perhaps if I were
invisible again, if they did not know I was there, I might hear
something to make me feel as badly as I did that morning." These sad
thoughts were part of the bitter fruit of the fairy fern-seed.

So with doubts and fears the year went by, and again it was Christmas
Eve. Toinette had been asleep some hours when she was roused by a sharp
tapping at the window pane. Startled, and only half awake, she sat up
in bed and saw by the moonlight a tiny figure outside which she
recognized. It was Thistle drumming with his knuckles on the glass.

"Let me in," cried the dry little voice. So Toinette opened the
casement, and Thistle flew in and perched as before on the coverlet.

"Merry Christmas, my girl." he said, "and a Happy New Year when it
comes. I've brought you a present;" and, dipping into a pouch tied
round his waist, he pulled out a handful of something brown. Toinette
knew what it was in a moment.

"Oh, no," she cried shrinking back. "Don't give me any fern-seeds. They
frighten me. I don't like them."

"Don't be silly," said Thistle, his voice sounding kind this time, and
earnest. "It wasn't pleasant being invisible last year, but perhaps
this year it will be. Take my advice, and try it. You'll not be sorry."

"Sha'n't I?" said Toinette, brightening. "Very well, then, I will." She
leaned out of bed, and watched Thistle strew the fine dustlike grains
in each shoe.