| To while away the time, I strolled, one afternoon, into Kensington Gardens, and, wandering aimlessly
along any path that presented itself, I soon became aware that I had somehow strayed into one that was
wholly new to me. Still, my elfish experiences seemed to have so completely faded out of my life that
nothing was further from my thoughts than the idea of again meeting my fairy-friends, when I chanced
to notice a small creature moving among the grass that fringed the path, that did not seem to be an
insect, or a frog, or any other living thing that I could think of. Cautiously kneeling down, and making an
ex tempore cage of my two hands, I imprisoned the little wanderer, and felt a sudden thrill of surprise
and delight on discovering that my prisoner was no other than Bruno himself!
Bruno took the matter very coolly, and, when I had replaced him on the ground, where he would be
within easy conversational distance, he began talking, just as if it were only a few minutes since last we
had met.
`Doos oo know what the Rule is,' he enquired, `when oo catches a Fairy, withouten its having tolded oo
where it was?' (Bruno's notions of English Grammar had certainly not improved since our last meeting.)
`No,' I said. `I didn't know there was any Rule about it.'
`I think oo've got a right to eat me,' said the little fellow, looking up into my face with a winning smile.
`But I'm not pruffickly sure. Oo'd better not do it wizout asking.'
It did indeed seem reasonable not to take so irrevocable a step as that, without due enquiry. `I'll certainly
ask about it, first,' I said. `Besides, I don't know yet whether you would be worth eating!'
`I guess I'm deliciously good to eat,' Bruno remarked in a satisfied tone, as if it were something to be
rather proud of.
`And what are you doing here, Bruno?'
`That's not my name!' said my cunning little friend. `Don't oo know my name's "Oh Bruno!"? That's what
Sylvie always calls me, when I says mine lessons.'
`Well then, what are you doing here, oh Bruno?'
`Doing mine lessons, a-course!' With that roguish twinkle in his eye, that always came when he knew he
was talking nonsense.
`Oh, that's the way you do your lessons, is it? And do you remember them well?'
`Always can 'member mine lessons,' said Bruno. `It's Sylvie's lessons that's so dreffully hard to 'member!'
He frowned, as if in agonies of thought, and tapped his forehead with his knuckles. `I ca'n't think
enough to understand them!' he said despairingly. `It wants double thinking, I believe!'
`But where's Sylvie gone?'
`That's just what I want to know!' said Bruno disconsolately. `What ever's the good of setting me lessons,
when she isn't here to 'splain the hard bits?'
`I'll find her for you!' I volunteered; and, getting up, I wandered round the tree under whose shade I had
been reclining, looking on all sides for Sylvie. In another minute I again noticed some strange thing
moving among the grass, and, kneeling down, was immediately confronted with Sylvie's innocent face,
lighted up with a joyful surprise at seeing me, and was accosted, in the sweet voice I knew so well, with
what seemed to be the end of a sentence whose beginning I had failed to catch.
`--and I think he ought to have finished them by this time. So I'm going back to him. Will you come too?
It's only just round at the other side of this tree.'
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