Her legs were cased in knitted gaiters of white wool, and her hands in the most comical miniatures of gloves.

On her fairy head she wore a large bonnet of grey beaver, with a frill inside.

(My wife explains that it was a "cap-front," adorned with little bunches of ribbon, and having a cap attached to it, the whole being put on separately before the bonnet.

Details which seem to amuse my little daughters, and to have less interest for my sons.) But it was her sister who shone on my young eyes like a fairy vision.

She looked too delicate, too brilliant, too utterly lovely, for anywhere but fairy-land.