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Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood.

Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding.

Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Temple, and dot them about in modern pleasure-gardens.

Then, in a somewhat more heightened tone, I told how, when their great-grandmother Field died, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighborhood for many miles round; and how the country people sang a hymn to her upon the way; and how the church-bell tolled so solemnly; and how she was buried in the chancel of the church, where she had always been a constant attendant on service on a Sunday.

And I told them how she was beloved and honoured by all the neighborhood, and how when she died, the whole parish mourned as for a mother.

Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the Twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them.

How I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the vastness of the hall and the long gallery, with its state bedchamber and its scarcely used bedrooms, and the fine old-fashioned garden, with its terraces and its fish-ponds.

But the youngest of them, about five years old, was particularly pleased with the story of the fairies, and their dancing on the green by moonlight, which I had told them; and of the fairy ring which they had left upon the green, like a boundary of their midnight revels.

We were all rather silent for some minutes, when Alice, with a more intelligent look, said, 'I think I have seen the fairy ring.' And John, who was listening with all his ears, said, 'I never saw any.'

'I wish I could see them,' said the youngest.

Then I proceeded with the story, and told how their great-grandmother Field was afterwards buried, and how the robins came and covered her over with leaves; but the children would not listen to that part of the story, they were so full of the fairies.

Presently, I thought they seemed to be fading away, and I awoke, and found myself in my arm-chair, and the fire was out, and the book that I had been reading, some old tales of our childhood, had fallen from my hands. And I tried to recall the children, but they were gone.

And I called out, 'Alice! John!' but there was no answer, and I found that I was sitting alone in the dark; and the candle had burnt down, and the shadows were long and silent.

And I said to myself, 'They are only dream-children, the phantoms of my imagination, the spirits of a past that never was.' And I knew that I had been dreaming.