“Do you know what would please her more than anything else?” asked Fairly Flew.
“No,” Mary Frances said. “Will you please tell me what it is?”
“To tell other little girls how to do the things you have just learned to do,” said the fairy.
“How perfectly delightful!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “I can get the girls to form a knitting club, can’t I?”
“Yes,” said the fairy, “get all your little friends to join, and make many of the pretty things that this paper explains about.”
“How I wish I could tell my mother about our lessons,” said Mary Frances.
“You may tell her. The Queen of Fairies sent word that you might do so if you asked when the paper was——”
[Illustration: Knitting Twins fell down.]
Suddenly the fairy disappeared. The Knitting Twins fell down. Wooley Ball and the Yarn Baby fell over on their sides.
“Oh!” cried Mary Frances; then she looked around and saw her mother standing in the door.
“Oh, Mother dear, come in,” she cried. “The most wonderful thing has happened since you’ve been away!” And she told about the crocheting and knitting lessons, and the gifts from the Queen of All Fairies.
“Wasn’t it lovely!” exclaimed her mother. “I am so glad! Just wait a minute,” and she went out of the sewing room.
Very soon she was back, carrying a long package which she handed to the little girl.
“A present from father and me,” she said.
Mary Frances opened the package and lifted out a wonderful infant doll which could open and shut its eyes and could cry when lifted on its side.
“Oh, how dear!” cried Mary Frances. “Nothing could please me so much. I wonder if the Queen of All Fairies knew you were bringing it? There are directions on this paper for making an infant’s outfit.”
“Perhaps she did,” said her mother. “Perhaps she planned the directions with this in mind.”
“Aren’t fairies and mothers wonderful people?” laughed Mary Frances, hugging her mother and the new doll at once.
“Not any more so than good little daughters,” said her mother, kissing her.
“Now, I must go to father,” she added. “Lunch will be ready in a short time.”
MARY FRANCES carried her new dolly over into the playroom and laid her down on the little bed by Mary Marie. Then she returned to the sewing room.
[Illustration: “Without my dear friends.”]