It takes time for that,
time and effort, and a long struggle with evil habits and tempers. But
there is sometimes a certain minute or day in which people begin to
change, and thus it was with Toinette. The fairy lesson was not lost
upon her. She began to fight with herself, to watch her faults and try
to conquer them. It was hard work; often she felt discouraged, but she
kept on. Week after week and month after month she grew less selfish,
kinder, more obliging than she used to be. When she failed and her old
fractious temper got the better of her, she was sorry and begged every
one's pardon so humbly that they could not but forgive. The mother
began to think that the elves really had bewitched her child. As for
the children they learned to love Toinette as never before, and came to
her with all their pains and pleasures, as children should to a kind
older sister. Each fresh proof of this, every kiss from Jeanneton,
every confidence from Marc, was a comfort to Toinette, for she never
forgot Christmas Day, and felt that no trouble was too much to wipe out
that unhappy recollection. "I think they like me better than they did
then," she would say; but then the thought came, "Perhaps if I were
invisible again, if they did not know I was there, I might hear
something to make me feel as badly as I did that morning.
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