The Fairies & the Christmas Child

The worst of being a Christmas Child is that you don't get birthday presents, but only Christmas ones. Old Naylor, who was Father's coachman, and had a great gruff voice that came from his boots and was rather frightening, used to ask how I expected to grow up without proper birthdays, and I thought I might have to stay little always. When I told Father this he laughed, but a moment later he grew quite grave.
"Listen, Chris," he said. And then he took me on his knee-I was a small chap then-and told me things that made me forget old Naylor, and wish and wish that Mother could have stayed with us. The angels had wanted her, Father explained; well, we wanted her too, and there were plenty of angels in heaven, anyway. When I said this Father gave me a great squeeze and put me down, and I tried to be glad that I was a Christmas child. But I wasn't really until a long time afterwards, when I had found the Fairy Ring, and met the Queen of the Fairies.

Lilian Fanny Gask (1865, Marylebone-17 November 1942, Camberwell) was an author of children's books. She was the eldest of six children of Charles Gask, merchant, and his wife Fanny, née Edis. Her brother, Arthur Gask, was also a writer.
In 1891, she was recorded in the England and Wales Census as being employed as a "pupil nurse" in London.
In 1904, her first book, Dog Tales, was published. This was the first of about thirty books published during her lifetime. She frequently collaborated with Dorothy Hardy, a noted animal and equine illustrator.
In a review of True Stories about Horses published in The Spectator it was stated that "some of Miss Lilian Gask's 'True Stories about Horses' are almost incredible, and all are gently sentimental. But they are pleasantly written, and the illustrations, by Mr. Patten Wilson, are spirited and delicate."