But
then their experiences were so much wider and more varied in
that old charmed, sunny, fairy life; the knot of their
difficulties was so readily cut, by a simple reference to some
Fortunatus' purse, or the arrival in the very nick of time of
some friendly fairy. Madelon did not draw the parallel quite
far enough, or it might have occurred to her that benevolence
did not become wholly extinct with the disappearance of
fairies, and that friendly interference is not quite unknown
even in these more prosaic days. The Fortunatus' purse, it is
true, might awake a sense of comparison, but who could have
looked at Jeanne-Marie's homely features, and have dreamed of
her in connexion with a fairy? In truth, it requires a larger
and deeper experience than any that Madelon could have
acquired, or reasoned out, to recognise how much of the charm
of these tales of our childhood can be traced to the eternal
truths that lie hidden in them, or to perceive that the
shining fairy concealed beneath the frequent guise of some
crabbed old woman, is no mere freak of fancy, but the symbol
of a reality, less exceptional perhaps amongst us poor
mortals, than amongst the fairies themselves, who, finding
their presence no longer needed, vanished from our earth so
many centuries ago.
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