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A long pause followed.
"Then you do not know where the babies come from into the wood?" I said, making one attempt more.
"There is nothing to know there," she answered. "They are in the wood; they grow there."
"Then how is it you never find one before it is quite grown?" I asked.
She knitted her brows and was silent a moment:
"They're not there till they're finished," she said.
"It is a pity the little sillies can't speak till they've forgotten everything they had to tell!" I remarked.
"Little Tolma, the last before this baby, looked as if she had something to tell, when I found her under a
beech−tree, sucking her thumb, but she hadn't. She only looked up at me−−oh, so sweetly! SHE will never go
bad and grow big! When they begin to grow big they care for nothing but bigness; and when they cannot
grow any bigger, they try to grow fatter. The bad giants are very proud of being fat."
"So they are in my world," I said; "only they do not say FAT there, they say RICH."
"In one of their houses," continued Lona, "sits the biggest and fattest of them−−so proud that nobody can see
him; and the giants go to his house at certain times, and call out to him, and tell him how fat he is, and beg
him to make them strong to eat more and grow fat like him."
The rumour at length reached my ears that Blunty had vanished. I saw a few grave faces among the bigger
ones, but he did not seem to be much missed.
The next morning Lona came to me and whispered,
"Look! look there−−by that quince−tree: that is the giant that was Blunty!−−Would you have known him?"
"Never," I answered. "−−But now you tell me, I could fancy it might be Blunty staring through a fog! He
DOES look stupid!"
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"He is for ever eating those apples now!" she said. "That is what comes of Little Ones that WON'T be little!"
"They call it growing−up in my world!" I said to myself. "If only she would teach me to grow the other way,
and become a Little One!−−Shall I ever be able to laugh like them?"
I had had the chance, and had flung it from me! Blunty and I were alike! He did not know his loss, and I had
to be taught mine!
CHAPTER XIV. A CRISIS
For a time I had no desire save to spend my life with the Little Ones. But soon other thoughts and feelings
began to influence me. First awoke the vague sense that I ought to be doing something; that I was not meant
for the fattening of boors! Then it came to me that I was in a marvellous world, of which it was assuredly my
business to discover the ways and laws; and that, if I would do anything in return for the children's goodness,
I must learn more about them than they could tell me, and to that end must be free. Surely, I thought, no
suppression of their growth can be essential to their loveliness and truth and purity! Not in any world could
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