It happened when she and Katherine had gone for a walk on a June Saturday. They started very early in the morning and walked very far, for a seven-year-old. But it was Saturday and they were both free, Kate from the lessons which her mother set her, and Katherine from teaching. And it was June. So they did not seem to get tired a bit, but walked and walked, and explored. Toward noon they came to a high meadow hilltop. There they lay down, flat on their backs among the Queen Anne’s lace, buttercups, and daisies, their arms across their eyes, their faces turned directly up toward the sun. It was luncheon time, but they did not care. The sunshine soaking into them and the smell of warm grass and earth were better than food.
They lay still for a long time, not even speaking to each other. Perhaps the little Kate slept. And they thought of getting up and starting for home only when the sun in the sky told Katherine that it must be past two o’clock.
Halfway down the hill pasture stood a little beach wood. They took their way through that because it looked so cool and inviting, and because Katherine knew there was a spring there among some rocks where they could get long, satisfying drinks of cold water. It was there they saw the fairy. They saw her just as they came out of the bright sunlight into the green, cool shade of the wood and stood above the water. She was at the other side of the spring facing them. She was looking down at her reflection in the water, not at all aware of their approach.
Kate saw her as a lovely girl in a floating green garment. Her feet and arms were bare and shining and it was their shining that made Kate know, even in that first instant before the fairy had glanced up, that she was unearthly. Kate and Katherine stood as still as the leaves on the trees in that still wood, awed and entranced. Then the little Kate whispered “Mother!” and pointed. At that whisper the fairy lifted her eyes. Kate saw the surprise in her eyes and a dawning—something; was it friendliness, or a smile? There was not time to know; for the fairy flashed backward and up on to a stone behind her across which the sunlight fell. And there she was lost in the sunlight. They simply could not see her any more.