XX 
  
THE FAIRY GIFTS 
  
  
THE Fairies had met in solemn session to 
distribute their gifts among all the new-born, 
children who had come into life in the last 
twenty-four hours. 
All these old-fashioned and capricious sis-
ters of Fate, all these bizarre mothers of joy 
and sorrow, were of many different kinds; 
some had a gloomy and sombre expression, 
others, a mischievous and clever one; some 
were young, who had always been young; oth-
ers old, who had always been old. 
Every father who believed in fairies had 
come, each one carrying his new-born child in 
his arms. 
Their gifts, aptitudes, good luck, armouries 
of circumstance, were heaped up on one side 
of the Judge’s box like prizes upon the plat-
form at a school feast day; but this case was 
different in this particular respect, that the 
gifts were not the reward of any effort, but 
quite on the contrary a favour accorded to him 
who had not yet lived, a favour able to deter-