Mary Poppins

by P.L. Travers

Mary Poppins gave a superior sniff. “Don’t you know,” she said pityingly, “that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?”

Mrs. Corry flung back her wispy little head and shrieked with laughter. “Old!” she said. “Why, I’m quite a chicken compared to my Grandmother. Now, there’s an old woman if you like. Still, I go back a good way. I remember the time when they were making this world, anyway, and I was well out of my teens then. My goodness, that was a to-do, I can tell you!”

Of course, one doesn’t expect Mother and Father to know about it—they don’t know anything, though they are such darlings—but you’d think Jane and Michael would——” “They did once,” said Mary Poppins, folding up one of Jane’s nightgowns. “What?” said John and Barbara together in very surprised voices. “Really? You mean they understood the Starling and the Wind and——” “And what the trees say and the language of the sunlight and the stars—of course they did! Once,” said Mary Poppins.