Fairies Afield Author:Molesworth Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Weather Maiden Once upon a time—it does not matter if it was a long ago " once," or not a long ago one; it does not matter what country it was in, whether... more » far off or near at hand—it was just a "once upon a time," somewhere and somewhen—a little girl sat crying quietly but very sadly, all by herself in a queer room which I will describe. But first I must tell you that she was not crying from temper, or from having been naughty and now being sorry, no, she was just crying because she was lonely and unloved and in a sense friendless. And it had not always been so with her. Some years ago—to her they seemed many, for she was only twelve, but in reality they were but few—she had had kind parents, father and mother both, who loved their only child very dearly, though she was not a very pretty or " taking " little girl She was small for her age and more thoughtful than clever or amusing. And now that the dear ones whom she belonged to were gone, and her only home as an orphan, and a poor orphan, was with cousins, who, though good worthy people, had adopted her out of duty and did not understand the shy silent child, or care to do so, it is not to be wondered at that she grew shyer and silenter and often seemed what she was really far from being, stupid and slow and even sullen. Her new home—though " new " it no longer was to her, for it was now nearly four years since Farmer Mac, as we will call him, had brought her back with him from the desolate house where she had been so happy and cared for since her birth—this new home was a large rambling old farm-house. A busy beehive of a place, cheerful enough to its owners and their sons, who were strong and active and hardworking from morning to night, but to Merran a sort of incessant worry and bustle, of loud voices and hurrying...« less