{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40573/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40573","id":"gutenberg_40573","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40573","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Children's stories","Fairy tales"],"text":"The Other Side of the Sun\n\n\n\n\n  _Uniform with this\n  BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n\nWYMPS, AND OTHER FAIRY TALES. Illustrated by Mrs. PERCY DEARMER.\n\nMiss SHARP has wit, wisdom, and imagination for her initial equipment,\nbut she possesses also what is rarer far--the accent and the point of\nview. For instance, she would never introduce a bicycle into this\nold-fashioned country. She knows perfectly well that if there should be\nany occasion for hurry--which is rarely the case in Fairyland--naturally\nyou take a rocking-horse.--_The Academy._\n\n\nALL THE WAY TO FAIRYLAND. Illustrated by Mrs. PERCY DEARMER.\n\nFar and away the best fairy tales are the old traditional stories of\nCinderella; Jack and the Beanstalk, and others. To these we add the\nstories of Hans Andersen and Grimm; and now room must be made in that\nselect company for the tales of EVELYN SHARP.--_The St. James' Gazette._\n\n\n_ALSO_\n\n  AT THE RELTON ARMS. A novel.\n  THE MAKING OF A PRIG. A novel.\n  THE MAKING OF A SCHOOL GIRL.\n\n\nJOHN LANE, LONDON AND NEW YORK.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n  The Other Side of the Sun\n\n  _Fairy Stories_\n  BY EVELYN SHARP\n\n  _Illustrated_\n  BY NELLIE SYRETT\n\n  JOHN LANE\n  THE BODLEY HEAD\n  LONDON AND NEW YORK\n  1900\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY\n  JOHN LANE\n\n\n  University Press\n\n  JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n  _TO_\n  ALL THE CHILDREN I KNOW\n  ON\n  THIS SIDE OF THE SUN\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                                        PAGE\n\n     I. THE WEIRD WITCH OF THE WILLOW-HERB                          3\n\n    II. THE MAGICIAN'S TEA-PARTY                                   25\n\n   III. THE HUNDREDTH PRINCESS                                     49\n\n    IV. SOMEBODY ELSE'S PRINCE                                     71\n\n     V. THE TEARS OF PRINCESS PRUNELLA                            103\n\n    VI. THE PALACE ON THE FLOOR                                   129\n\n   VII. THE LADY DAFFODILIA                                       147\n\n  VIII. THE KITE THAT WENT TO THE MOON                            163\n\n\n\n\nThe Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb\n\n\nThe Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb lived in a pink cottage on the top of\na hill. She was merry and beautiful and wise and kind; and she was all\ndressed in pink and green, and she had great eyes that were sometimes\nfilled with laughter and sometimes filled with tears, and her round soft\nmouth looked as though it had done nothing but smile for hundreds and\nhundreds of years. Her pink cottage was the most charming place in the\nworld to live in; the walls were made of the flower of the willow-herb,\nand the roof was made of the green leaves, and the floors were made of\nthe white down; and all the little lattice windows were cobwebs, spun by\nthe spiders who live in Fairyland and make the windows for the Fairy\nQueen's own palace. And no one but a wymp or a fairy could have said how\nlong the Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb had been living in her cottage\non the top of the hill.\n\nNow, any one might think that this wonderful Witch was so sweet and so\nwise that all sorts of people would be coming, all day long, to ask her\nto help them; for, of course, that is what a witch is for. But this\nparticular Witch, who lived in her pink cottage on the top of the hill,\nhad not been living there all that time for nothing.\n\n\"If I did not keep a few spells lying about at the bottom of the hill, I\nshould never have a moment's peace,\" chuckled the Witch of the\nWillow-Herb. And that is why most of the people who came to ask her for\nspells never got so far as the pink cottage at all, for they found what\nthey wanted at the bottom of the hill; and no doubt that saved everybody\na great deal of trouble.\n\n\"Poor people!\" said the Weird Witch, with her voice full of kindness;\n\"why should I make them climb up all this way, just to see me?\"\n\nSometimes, however, it did happen that somebody got to the top of the\nhill; or else it is clear that this story would never have been written.\nFor, one day, as the Witch sat on the doorstep of her pink cottage,\nlooking out over the world with her great eyes that saw everything, the\nlittle Princess Winsome came running up the white path that twisted\nround and round and up and up until it reached the cottage at the top;\nand she did not stop running until she stood in front of the Weird Witch\nherself. She looked as though she must have come along in a great hurry,\nfor she had lost one of her shoes on the way and there was quite an\nimportant scratch on her dimpled chin; but, of course, it is difficult\nto walk sedately when one is going to call on a witch.\n\n\"I am Princess Winsome,\" she announced, as soon as she had breath enough\nto speak.\n\n\"To be sure you are,\" smiled the Weird Witch, who knew that before; \"and\nyou have run away from home because--\"\n\n\"Because I want to find the bravest boy in the world,\" interrupted the\nPrincess, who never liked to let anybody else do the talking.\n\n\"Are they all cowards in your country, then?\" asked the Witch.\n\n\"Oh no,\" answered Princess Winsome; \"the boys in my country are so brave\nthat it is no fun playing with them. They stop all the games by fighting\nabout nothing at all; and it's dreadfully dull when you're a girl, isn't\nit?\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is,\" smiled the Witch. \"Then why are you looking for the\nbravest boy of all?\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the little Princess, wisely, \"the bravest boy of all would\nnever fight unless there was a reason, you see; and so we should have\nlots of time to play. But how am I to find him?\"\n\n\"The only way to find him is to let him find you,\" said the Weird Witch;\n\"and the best thing I can do for you is to shut you up in the middle of\nan enchanted forest, where no one but the bravest boy in the world would\never come to find any one. Now, make haste, or you won't get there in\ntime!\"\n\nAnd the Princess with the scratch on her chin must certainly have made\nhaste, for she had quite disappeared by the time the Witch's next\nvisitor came up the winding white path; and that happened the very next\nminute. This time it was a boy who came along,--a tall, strong,\njolly-looking boy, with his hands in his pockets and his cap at the back\nof his head, whistling a strange wild tune that was made up of all the\nsongs of all the birds in the air, so that, as he whistled it, every\nbird for miles round stopped to listen.\n\n\"I am Kit the Coward,\" he said, pulling off his cap to the Witch.\n\n\"To be sure you are,\" smiled the Weird Witch, who knew that too; \"and\nyou have run away from home because the other boys called you a coward,\nand you want to show them that you are as brave as they are, only you\nwon't fight without a reason. Isn't that it?\"\n\n\"Of course it is,\" answered Kit, who liked to have _his_ talking done\nfor him; \"but how shall I find something worth fighting about?\"\n\n\"That is not difficult,\" said the Weird Witch. \"All you have to do is to\ngo to the court of King Hurlyburly, and ask him to give you something\nbrave to do. The King is always going to war about something, so you\nwill soon have as much fighting as you want. Now, be off with you, or\nelse someone will get there before you!\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Kit. \"Which is the way?\"\n\n\"Any way you like,\" laughed the Weird Witch.\n\n\"But in what direction?\" asked Kit.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" laughed the Weird Witch.\n\nSo Kit made her another bow and marched away again down the hill-side,\nwhistling the same tune as before; and all the birds of the air came\nflying along when they heard it, and they flew in front of him to show\nhim the way, and he followed them over meadows and streams and orchards\nand cornfields, until they brought him to the walls of King Hurlyburly's\ncity. And they would not have left him then, if he had not pointed out\nto them, most politely, that although it was very obliging of them to\nhave come so far with him, he would find it a little inconvenient to\ntravel any further with so many companions. So they flew away again; and\nKit marched into the city and up to the gates of the King's palace.\n\n\"I have come to fight for the King,\" said Kit, when the guards came out\nand asked him what he wanted. And he looked such a fine strong fellow,\nthat they took him at once to the King.\n\n\"You have come in the very nick of time,\" said King Hurlyburly, \"for the\nCommander-in-Chief of the royal forces has overslept himself so often\nthat I had him beheaded this morning before he was awake. The army is in\nconsequence without a head as well as the Commander-in-Chief; so if you\nwill become their General and invade the country of my neighbour King\nTopsyturvy, I shall be much obliged to you.\"\n\n\"Why have I got to invade the country of King Topsyturvy?\" demanded Kit.\n\nThe King pushed his crown on one side, which he always did when he felt\npuzzled. \"Now you come to mention it,\" he said, \"I believe there _was_ a\nreason, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. However,\nthe reason is of no importance--\"\n\n\"Oh yes, it is,\" interrupted Kit. \"I can't possibly fight without a\nreason, you know.\"\n\n\"That's awkward,\" said King Hurlyburly. \"Perhaps the army will know.\"\nAnd he sent a message round to the barracks to ask the soldiers why they\nwere going to war. But although the soldiers were all ready to begin\nfighting, they had not the least idea what the war was about. So the\nKing's crown became more crooked than before.\n\n\"Won't it do if you invent a reason?\" he asked Kit, for he could not\nhelp thinking how nice it would be to stay at home while his soldiers\nwere being led to war by someone else. \"You may marry the Princess\nWinsome if you come back victorious,\" he added as an afterthought.\n\nBut Kit only shook his head. He had never heard of the Princess Winsome,\nand he was not going to fight anybody without a very good reason for\nit.\n\nThen King Hurlyburly had a brilliant idea. \"Go and declare war on the\nenemy, to begin with,\" he said; \"and perhaps _they_ will remember the\nreason.\"\n\nThere was certainly no harm in declaring war; so Kit rode off at once on\none of the King's fastest horses, and arrived the next morning at the\ncourt of King Topsyturvy, just as his Majesty was sitting down to\nbreakfast.\n\n\"I have come from King Hurlyburly to declare war,\" said Kit, who always\nwent straight to the point.\n\n\"What for?\" asked King Topsyturvy.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Kit. \"That's what I want you to tell me.\"\n\nThe King ate two eggs before he replied.\n\n\"Well,\" he said presently, \"I believe I said Hurlyburly was a shocking\nold muddler. I suppose that's it. All right! When do you want to begin?\"\n\n\"I don't want to begin at all,\" answered Kit. \"Why did you say he was a\nmuddler?\"\n\n\"Oh, just to make conversation,\" said King Topsyturvy, helping himself\nto marmalade.\n\n\"Then you don't really think he is an old muddler?\" asked Kit.\n\n\"Dear me, no,\" said King Topsyturvy. \"I never think.\"\n\n\"Then write that down on a piece of paper, and there needn't be a war at\nall!\" cried Kit.\n\nThe King stroked his beard. \"Perhaps there needn't,\" he agreed. \"But I\nnever write.\"\n\n\"I do, though,\" said Kit, who had learned to write while all the other\nboys were making catapults; \"you've only got to sign your name here.\"\n\nKing Topsyturvy stopped eating his breakfast, just long enough to sign\nthe beautiful apology Kit had written on a sheet of note-paper; and then\nKit jumped on his horse again and rode back to the palace of King\nHurlyburly.\n\n\"Well,\" said his Majesty, \"did you discover the reason?\"\n\n\"There wasn't a reason, and there isn't going to be a war,\" answered\nKit; and he held out the beautifully written apology from King\nTopsyturvy.\n\n\"What!\" cried his Majesty, in alarm. \"Do you mean to say you've stopped\nthe war?\"\n\n\"Of course I have,\" said Kit. \"And I have come back victorious, as you\nsee. Didn't you say something about a Princess?\"\n\n\"But,\" stammered the King, \"how am I to appease the army? The army has\nset its heart on a war.\"\n\n\"So had I,\" answered Kit, sadly; \"but I never can find anything worth\nfighting about. Meanwhile, where is the Princess?\"\n\n\"You have not won the Princess,\" said King Hurlyburly, who was now\nthoroughly cross. \"I believe you are a miserable coward!\"\n\n\"That is what the other boys say,\" answered Kit, smiling. \"It is not my\nfault that there is nothing to fight about. Will you please send for the\nPrincess?\"\n\n\"The Princess has run away from home, so I can't send for her,\" said the\nKing, irritably. \"She is shut up in an enchanted forest, and surrounded\nwith wild beasts and magic spells and giants. It is not at all a nice\nplace for a Princess to be in, but how am I to get her away?\"\n\n\"Why,\" exclaimed Kit, laughing, \"here is something for your army to do.\nLet it go and rescue the Princess.\"\n\n\"Nothing would induce the army to go near the place,\" explained the\nKing, sorrowfully; \"the army is too much afraid of being bewitched.\"\n\n\"Hurrah!\" shouted Kit, laughing more than ever. \"At last I have found\nsomething brave to do! _I_ will go and rescue the Princess.\"\n\nSo Kit the Coward started out on his travels once more; and no sooner\ndid he get outside the city gates than he began to whistle his wonderful\ntune, and down swept all the birds of the air in hundreds, and they flew\nin front of him as before and led him to the very edge of the enchanted\nforest. There they left him, for no one can help anybody to go through\nan enchanted forest, and Kit knew fast enough that he must find the\nPrincess by himself. He was not a bit afraid, though, and he plunged\nstraight into the wood without looking back.\n\nHe had not taken two steps before he had completely lost himself. The\ntrees were so thick overhead that not a streak of sunshine was able to\nget through, and the forest was so full of wild beasts that it was\nimpossible to walk five yards without tumbling over a lion or a bear.\nBut this did not frighten Kit at all, for he had learned to talk the\nlanguage of the woods all the time that the other boys were knocking one\nanother on the head; and so he soon made friends with every animal in\nthe forest, and they told him the best places to find apples and nuts\nand blackberries, and the bees brought him the very best honey they\ncould make, and he grew so happy and so contented that he quite forgot\nhe was enchanted and could not escape if he wanted to.\n\nBut it is impossible to be happy for long when one is bewitched; and,\none day, Kit found himself in a part of the forest that was more\nhorrible and more frightening than any dark passage that was ever\ninvented on the way to any nursery. It was not only dark, but it was\nstrangely silent as well; and a curious feeling of gloom and unhappiness\nsuddenly crept over Kit. If it had been a nice sort of silence, the sort\nwe find when we get away from the other boys and girls into a place\nwhere it is quiet enough to hear the real sounds of the air, Kit would\nstill have been quite happy; but here there was nothing to be heard at\nall, not even the brushing of the leaves, nor the blooming of the\nflowers, nor the growing of the grass. But the most frightening thing of\nall was when he clapped his hands together and stamped as hard as he\ncould on the ground, for not a sound did he make; and when he tried to\nspeak, he found he could only whisper; and when he burst out laughing,\nhe made no more noise than if he had been smiling. Still, he kept his\nwits about him, for, of course, there was the Princess to be rescued,\nand at last he thought of trying to whistle. At first he could not make\na note sound in the stillness, but he went on trying until the wonderful\ntune he had learned long ago from the birds themselves began to echo\nonce more through the silent forest.\n\nHe did not get an answer at once, for really nice birds cannot be\nexpected to go out of their way to a place where there is no sunshine\nand the flowers cannot enter into conversation with them; but after a\nwhile a very fat blackbird, who certainly had impudence enough for\nanything, came hopping along from branch to branch until he landed on\nKit's shoulder, and with him came sunshine and sound and merriment into\nthe very heart of the melancholy forest, for none of these things are\never far off when a blackbird is near. Kit gave a shout of joy and\nhastened after the blackbird, who was hopping along the ground in front\nof him; and the next minute he found himself standing in a blaze of\nsunlight in front of a high stone wall. Beyond the wall he could see the\ntall towers of a great castle; but he did not trouble himself much about\nthe other side of the wall, for on the top of it, with the sunshine\npouring all over her, sat the most charming little girl he had ever\nseen.\n\nShe had lost one of her shoes, and there was the faintest sign of a\nscratch on her round, dimpled chin, and her long black hair flowed round\nher shoulders in a way that some people might have called untidy; but\nKit was sure, directly he saw her, that she had come straight out of\nFairyland, and he was too amazed even to make her a bow.\n\n\"Dear me! What are you doing here?\" asked the girl, in a tone of great\nsurprise.\n\nKit took a step nearer the wall, and pulled off his cap. Her voice\nreminded him that, although she belonged to Fairyland, she was still a\nlittle girl and would expect him to remember his manners. \"I have come\nto rescue the Princess,\" he said. \"Can you tell me where she is?\"\n\n\"She lives in the castle over there,\" answered the girl. \"What are you\ngoing to do when you have rescued her?\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose I shall ask her to marry me,\" said Kit. \"Do you think\nshe will?\"\n\n\"Ah,\" she replied gravely, \"that depends on whether you have _my_\npermission. Tell me who you are, to begin with.\"\n\n\"I am Kit the Coward,\" he said simply; and he stared when she broke into\nthe merriest peal of laughter imaginable.\n\n\"What nonsense!\" she cried. \"If you were a coward, you would never have\ngot here at all.\"\n\n\"Is that true?\" asked Kit eagerly. \"Then do you think the Princess\n_will_ marry me?\"\n\nThe girl looked down at him for a moment, with her untidy little head on\none side. Then she bent and held out her two hands to him. \"I think,\nperhaps, the Princess will,\" she said softly. \"If you will help me down\nfrom this enormous high wall, we will go and ask her.\"\n\nSo Kit lifted her down from the wall, which was quite an easy matter,\nfor it was in reality no higher than he was and the little girl was\ncertainly the lightest weight he had ever held in his arms. \"What are\nyou looking for?\" he asked, when he had set her on the ground, for she\nwas kneeling down and turning over the dry leaves in a most distressed\nmanner.\n\n\"I am looking for my crown, of course,\" she said with a pout; \"it\ntumbled off my head just before you came, and I was too frightened to\njump all that long way to find it.\"\n\n\"Here it is,\" said Kit; and he picked up the little glittering crown and\nset it gently on the top of her beautiful, rumpled hair. Then he started\nback in surprise. \"You are the Princess!\" he shouted.\n\n\"Of course I am,\" laughed Princess Winsome, putting her hand in his;\n\"_I_ knew that, all the time! Shall we go home now?\"\n\nKit did not reply immediately, for no one can do two things at once, and\nit took him quite a long time to kiss the small soft hand that lay in\nhis own big one. And as for going home, when they did start they did not\nget very far; for it must not be forgotten that they were still in an\nenchanted forest, and it is easier to get into an enchanted forest than\nto get out of it again. However, as they had everything in the world to\ntalk about, they would probably have been most annoyed if they had found\ntheir way instead of losing it; so they just went on losing it as\nhappily as possible, until they could not walk another step because an\nimmense giant was occupying the whole of the roadway. There he sat,\nsmoking a great pipe that looked like a chimney-pot that wanted\nsweeping; and when the Princess saw him, she was so frightened that she\nhid herself behind Kit and peeped under his arm to see what was going to\nhappen.\n\n\"Hullo!\" said the giant, in a huge voice that made the grass stand on\nend with fright, just as it does after a hoar-frost; \"what's this?\nYou're running away with the Princess!\"\n\n\"To be sure I am,\" said Kit; \"and if you don't let me pass, I shall have\nto kill you.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" sighed the giant, raising a wind that made the trees shiver\nfor miles round. \"They all say that, and there's no peace for a poor\ngiant now-a-days. When I was a boy, the Prince was always put under a\nspell as well as the Princess. However, I suppose I must make an end of\nyou, if you are determined to fight.\"\n\nAnd he laid down his pipe and rose most unwillingly to his feet.\n\nKit laughed out loud with gladness, for at last he had found a good\nreason for a fight, and no one would be able to call him a coward any\nmore. But before there was time to strike a single blow, the giant gave\na loud howl of alarm, took to his heels, and in another moment was\ncompletely out of sight. Kit turned in amazement to his little Princess;\nand then he saw what had frightened the giant, for all the animals of\nthe forest, all the lions and the tigers and the bears and the wolves,\nstood there in rows, waiting to help him. So there is no doubt that that\ngiant would have been killed by somebody if he had not run away.\n\n\"Isn't it wonderful?\" said the little Princess, in a whisper.\n\nBut Kit covered his face with his hands. \"It is no use,\" he said in a\ndisappointed tone; \"the other boys will never believe that I am not a\ncoward.\"\n\nPrincess Winsome came and pulled his hands away and laughed softly. \"_I_\nthink you are the bravest boy in the world,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course he is!\" chuckled a voice somewhere near. \"How stupid some\npeople are, to be sure!\" And there sat the Weird Witch under a tree, all\nin her pink and green gown, with her great eyes brimful of fun and\nnonsense. And as the boy and girl stood hand in hand before her and\ncaught the glance of her beautiful witch's eyes, all sorts of muddles\nfell out of their heads, and they began to understand everything that\nhad been puzzling them for years and years and years. That only shows\nwhat a witch can do when she is the right sort of witch!\n\n\"Dear little Princess,\" cried Kit, \"it doesn't matter whether the other\nboys believe me or not, so long as _you_ know I am not a coward.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" added Princess Winsome, \"we are not going to try to make\nanybody believe anything. I think we'll stay here, instead, for ever and\never and always.\"\n\n\"A very good idea,\" smiled the Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb, as she\nnodded at them both. \"Always remain enchanted if you can.\"\n\nSo they had the nicest and the funniest wedding possible, on the spot;\nand there was no time wasted in sending out invitations, for all the\nguests were already waiting there in rows--with the exception of the\nsinging-birds; and Kit very soon summoned them by whistling a few notes\nof his wonderful tune. The Princess laid her own wedding-breakfast under\nthe trees, and the wedding-guests helped her by bringing her everything\nthat was nice to eat in the forest, such as roasted chestnuts and\npreserved fruits and truffles and barley-sugar-cane, and lots of\ndewdrops and honey-drops and pear-drops; and the Weird Witch completed\nthe feast by turning a piece of rock that nobody wanted into a\nwedding-cake, and every one will agree that it is better for a rock to\nturn into a wedding-cake than for a wedding-cake to turn into a rock.\nAnd all the flowers came of their own accord and arranged themselves on\nthe table, which they certainly did much more prettily than anybody else\ncould have done it for them; and when the wedding was over they just\nwalked away again instead of stopping until they were dead, which of\ncourse is what they would have done at any other wedding. And although\nthe bride had lost her other shoe by the time she was ready to be\nmarried, and although her beautiful hair was more untidy than ever and\nher crown had tumbled off again and had to be brought to her by an\nobliging lion, Kit never noticed any of these things and only felt quite\ncertain that he was marrying somebody who had come right out of\nFairyland and was not an ordinary Princess at all. No doubt, it was\nbecause he was in an enchanted forest that he made such a mistake; and\nno doubt, it is because he has never been disenchanted since that he is\nmaking the same mistake to this day.\n\nAs for the Weird Witch of the Willow-Herb, she went back to her pink\ncottage on the top of the hill, so as to be ready to make the next\nperson happy who came up the white winding path. But before she went,\nshe took care that all the singing-birds should fly back to Kit's home\nand tell the other boys how brave he had been, which they did with the\ngreatest pleasure imaginable. It is said that the story became slightly\nexaggerated; but when we know how much one little bird can tell, it is\nnot difficult to imagine the kind of story that could be told by\nhundreds and hundreds of little birds.\n\n\n\n\nThe Magician's Tea-Party\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nLittle King Wistful slipped through the palace gates and went out into\nhis kingdom to look for something new. He was only eight years old, so\nhe was not a very big King; but he had been King as long as he could\nremember, and he had been looking for something new the whole time. Now,\nhis kingdom was entirely made of islands, and in the days when the old\nKing and Queen were alive these islands were known as the Cheerful\nIsles. But King Wistful changed their name soon after he came to the\nthrone, and insisted on their being called the Monotonous Isles. For,\nstrange as it may sound, this little King of eight years old thought his\nkingdom was the dullest and the ugliest and the most wearisome place in\nthe world, and nothing that his nurses or his councillors could do ever\nsucceeded in making him laugh and play like other little boys.\n\n\"Only look at the stupid things!\" muttered his Majesty impatiently, as\nhe stood and surveyed his kingdom from the top of a small, grassy\nhillock. \"Five round islands in a row; always five round islands in a\nrow! If only some of them were square, it would be something!\"\n\nAt the bottom of the hill was a wood, one of those pale-green baby\nwoods, where the trees are young and slender and nothing grows very\nplentifully except the bracken and the heather. And as the King stood\nand felt sorry for himself at the top of the hill, out from the wood at\nthe bottom of the hill came the sound of a little girl's voice, singing\na quaint little song. And this was the song:--\n\n        \"Sing-song! Don't be long!\n        Wistful, Wistful, come and play!\n        Sing-song! It's very wrong\n        To stay and stay and stay away!\n    The world is much too nice a place\n    To make you pull so long a face;\n    It's full of people being kind,\n    And full of flowers for you to find;\n    There's heaps of folks for you to tease\n    And all the naughtiness you please;\n    To sulk is surely waste of time\n    When all those trees are yours to climb!\n        Ting-a-ring! Make haste, King!\n    I've something really nice to say;\n    Ting-a-ring! A _proper_ King\n    Would not make me sing all day!\"\n\nKing Wistful thrilled all over with excitement. Was something really\ngoing to happen at last? He had hardly time to think, however, before\nthe little singer came out of the wood into the open. She wore a clean\nwhite pinafore, and on her head was a large white sunbonnet, and under\nthe sunbonnet were two of the brightest brown eyes the King had ever\nseen. He stepped down the hill towards her, wondering how anything so\npretty and so merry could have come into his kingdom; and at the same\ninstant the little girl saw the King and came running up the hill\ntowards him, so it was not long before they stood together, hand in\nhand, half-way down the hillside.\n\n\"Where did you come from and who are you and how long have you been\nhere?\" asked the King, breathlessly.\n\n\"I am Eyebright, of course,\" answered the little girl, smiling; \"and\nI've been here always.\"\n\n\"Who taught you to sing that song about me?\" demanded the King.\n\n\"The magician,\" answered Eyebright; \"and he told me to sing it every day\nuntil you came. But you _have_ been a long time coming!\"\n\n\"I'm very sorry,\" replied his Majesty, apologetically; \"you see, the\nmagician did not tell me to come. In fact, I don't even know who the\nmagician is.\"\n\n\"Are you not the King, then?\" asked Eyebright, opening her great brown\neyes as wide as they would go.\n\nThe little King felt it was hardly necessary to answer this; but he set\nhis heels together and took off his crown and made her the best bow he\nhad learned at his dancing-class, just to show beyond any doubt that he\nwas the King. Eyebright still looked a little doubtful.\n\n\"Then how is it that you do not know the magician?\" she asked him. \"What\nis the use of being King, if you do not know everybody who lives in your\nkingdom?\"\n\n\"It isn't any use; I never said I wanted to be King, did I?\" said his\nMajesty, a little crossly. It was not pleasant to find that somebody\nelse, and only a little girl in a sunbonnet, knew more about his kingdom\nthan he did.\n\n\"What a very funny boy you are!\" remarked Eyebright, without noticing\nhis crossness. \"I always thought it must be so splendid to be a King,\nand to have a banquet whenever you like, and never to go out without a\nprocession, and to wear a crown instead of a sunbonnet, and--\"\n\n\"That's all you know about it,\" interrupted the King, somewhat\nimpolitely. \"There aren't any banquets; and when there are, you only\nhave stupid things with long names to eat, and you never know whether to\neat them with a fork or a spoon, and it's always wrong whichever you do.\nAnd if you ask for jumbles or chocolate creams or plum-cake, you're told\nyou mustn't spoil your dinner. And all the procession you ever get is a\nprocession of nurses, who won't even let you step in a puddle if you\nwant to!\"\n\n\"Dear me,\" said Eyebright, \"you're no better off than a little boy in an\nordinary nursery!\"\n\nThe little King drew himself up on tiptoe with great dignity. \"Some of\nyour remarks are most foolish,\" he said. \"You forget that I have a\nkingdom of my own as well as a nursery. To be sure,\" he added sadly, \"it\nis not much to boast of, for it is a very stupid kingdom, and nothing\nnice ever happens in it.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" exclaimed Eyebright. \"Your kingdom is the nicest\nkingdom in the whole world!\"\n\nKing Wistful had managed to keep his temper so far, but this was more\nthan he could bear. \"Rubbish!\" he cried, completely forgetting his royal\nmanners. \"You come up the hill with me, and I'll show you what a stupid\nkingdom it is.\"\n\nSo they raced up to the top of the hill and looked down at the five\nround islands in a row. \"There!\" said King Wistful. \"Did you ever see\nanything so dull?\"\n\nThe little girl shook her head. \"I think it is all as pretty as it can\nbe,\" she said. \"Look how the sun glints on the cornfields, and see the\ngreat red and blue patches of flowers--\"\n\n\"But they're always the same flowers,\" complained his Majesty, yawning.\n\n\"They're supposed to be the same flowers, but they never are,\" answered\nEyebright. \"If you were to pick them--\"\n\n\"Kings never pick flowers,\" he replied haughtily.\n\n\"Perhaps that is why you know so little about them,\" retorted Eyebright;\nand his Majesty began to feel he was not getting the best of it.\n\n\"Anyhow,\" he continued hastily, \"you must own that the sea never\nchanges.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Eyebright; \"that is because you have not learned the sea\nproperly. It has ever so many different faces, and ever so many\ndifferent voices, too.\"\n\nThe King turned and stared at her. \"Are you a witch?\" he asked\nwonderingly.\n\n\"No!\" laughed Eyebright, merrily. \"If I were, I would make you see\nthings right instead of wrong.\" Then she suddenly scampered down the\nhill again. \"Come along, _quick_!\" she cried. \"We'll go and ask the\nmagician to disenchant you.\"\n\nKing Wistful had to run his hardest to catch her, for the little girl in\nthe sunbonnet certainly knew how to put one foot in front of the other.\nBut then, a sunbonnet is not so apt to tumble off a person's head as a\ncrown, and that makes all the difference in a running race.\n\n\"Where does the magician live?\" he panted, when he came up with her.\n\n\"In the middle island,\" she answered. \"We'll find the boat and follow\nthe river down to the sea.\" She plunged into the wood as she spoke, and\nthreaded her way through the slender young trees, with his Majesty\nclose at her heels. Sometimes the bracken was as tall as she was, but\nthe boy behind could always see the sunbonnet bobbing up and down just\nahead of him, and he followed it until they came out at the other side\nof the wood and found themselves on the banks of a charming little\nriver. A small round boat like a tub, lined with pink rose-leaves, was\nwaiting for them; and into this they both jumped.\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" cried Eyebright, jumping up and down with delight. \"The\nfairies are out to-day! Look at them--the purple ones in the\nloosestrife, and the pink and white ones in the comfrey, and--\"\n\n\"You'll upset the boat if you don't sit still,\" interrupted the King,\nwho felt cross because he could not see the fairies. \"Let me have the\noars and I'll take you down the stream.\"\n\n\"You need not do anything of the sort,\" said Eyebright; \"for this is the\nboat the magician gave me, and it always takes you wherever you want to\ngo.\"\n\nSo they just sat in the sunshine and floated lazily along, and they\ndabbled their hands in the water and made their sleeves as wet as they\npleased, and they caught at the branches above as they passed under\nthem, and they leaned over the side and stretched after everything that\ngrew out of reach; and, in short, if they had not been in a fairy boat,\nit is very certain that they would have tumbled into the water several\ntimes before they reached their journey's end. Presently, the river\nwidened out into the big calm sea; and after that, the boat quickened\nits speed and took them across to the middle island in no time at all,\nfor the fairies know well enough that nobody wants to dawdle about in an\nopen sea, where there are no tadpoles to catch and no trees that sweep\ntheir branches down to meet the water.\n\nWhen the boat stopped, they found themselves on the edge of a shore\ncovered with sea-lilac and yellow poppies, and wonderful shells that\nsang without being put to any one's ear; and just a little way along the\nbeach was the magician's cave. There was no doubt about its being the\nright cave, for over the door of it was written in square acid tablets:\n\"This is the magician's cave.\" Besides, the whole cave was dug out of a\nsolid almond rock; and of course, any other person's cave would have\nbeen made of plain rock without any almonds in it.\n\n\"Come along,\" said Eyebright; and the two children walked up the beach\nand knocked at the magician's door and went in.\n\nSome people might think that a cave on the sea-shore would be full of\ndraughts and jellyfish and wet shrimps; but this particular cave was\njust like the nicest room that ever belonged to a castle-in-the-air. The\nwonder of it was, that whoever went into it found the very things he had\nnever had and always wanted, and none of the things that he had always\nhad and never wanted. So Eyebright immediately found a beautiful\nstory-book, with a coloured picture on every page, and all the sad\nstories squeezed between the happy stories, so that no one who read it\ncould ever cry for long at a time; while the King found the inside of a\nclock waiting to be picked to pieces, and an open pocket-knife with a\nbit of firewood lying handy, and a full-rigged schooner ready to be\nsailed. And they both saw the dear old magician, sitting in his\narm-chair and smiling at them.\n\nHe was dressed in a long cloak, that always began by being a green cloak\nbut changed every other minute to a different colour, according to the\nmood the magician was in; and as he was always in a nice mood, whether\nit was a sad or a merry one, his cloak always managed to be a nice\ncolour. On his head was a high pointed hat, with crackers sticking out\nof it and a pattern worked all over it in caramels and preserved\ncherries; and he wore furry foxgloves on his hands to keep them warm,\nbecause he was not so young as he used to be. He had been practising as\na magician for over a thousand years, but he did not look very old, for\nall that; he was what might be called pleasantly old, for he had soft\nwhite hair and a curly white beard and a pink complexion like a\nschool-boy's. That is how a magician grows old when he has always been a\njolly magician.\n\nEyebright ran straight up to him and climbed on his knee and hugged him.\n\"I've brought the King to see you,\" she announced; \"and we want you to\nbe a nice, kind, _lovely_ magician and help him to be disenchanted.\"\n\nThe magician stood up and shook hands with the King, just to make him\nfeel at home; and the boy did not feel shy another minute, and quite\nforgot that he had never paid a visit before without a procession of\nnurses to look after him.\n\n\"You are very good children to call on me at tea-time,\" said the\nmagician. \"If there is one thing more than another that makes me feel\nthe ache in my bones, it is having tea by myself. Now, would you like to\nhave it on the floor, or shall I call up a table?\"\n\nThe King, who had had his meals on a table all his life, voted for the\nfloor; but when Eyebright said it would be more fun to see what would\nhappen if they chose the table, he had to own that perhaps she was\nright. What happened was very simple: the magician just stamped on the\nfloor, and a neat little table, covered with a nice white cloth, walked\nin at the door like any person and took up its position in the middle of\nthe floor.\n\n\"Well!\" exclaimed Eyebright; \"I never knew tables could walk, before!\"\n\n\"What do you suppose they have four legs for?\" asked the magician,\nsmiling.\n\n\"My nursery table does not walk,\" observed the little King.\n\n\"Ah,\" said the magician, wisely, \"some tables do not know how to put two\nand two together. Now for some chairs!\"\n\nHe stamped on the floor again, and two little arm-chairs bustled into\nthe room as fast as their fat little legs would carry them. \"You must\nexcuse their being in such a hurry,\" said the magician; \"they have been\nplaying at musical chairs all their lives, you see. Now, while you are\nlaying the table, I will boil the kettle. Crockery in the left-hand\ncupboard, and eatables in the right-hand cupboard!\"\n\nSo the magician set to work and lighted the fire with peppermint-sticks,\nand the two children opened the doors of his wonderful cupboards. The\ncrockery in the left-hand cupboard was the right sort of crockery, for\nnone of it matched; so it did not take a minute to find a small pink cup\nand a green saucer for Eyebright, and a big blue cup and a red saucer\nfor the magician, and a nice purple mug without any saucer at all for\nKing Wistful. As for the right-hand cupboard, the little King was\noverjoyed when he found it stocked with jumbles and chocolate creams and\nplum-cake. \"I _am_ glad,\" he said with a sigh of relief, \"that you don't\nkeep seed-cake in your cupboard. Seed-cake always reminds me of eleven\no'clock in the morning.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the magician, \"the wymps saw to that, when they filled my\ncupboard for me, centuries ago. There's never any bread-and-butter in\nit, either--until you've had as much plum-cake as you can eat.\"\n\nThat was a delightful tea-party. The magician did not mind in the least\nwhen they made polite remarks about the food and told him his jumbles\nmight have been kept a little longer with advantage, or that his\nchocolate creams were not quite so soft as some they had known. But\nthey hastened to add that his tea was the nicest tea they had ever\ntasted because it had only a grown-up amount of milk in it, so he would\nhave been rather a cross magician if he had minded. Nor did he raise any\nobjection when they walked about in the middle of tea and took a look at\nthe picture-book, or whittled away the piece of firewood, or danced\nround the cave and shouted because everything was so nice. And after tea\nthere were all the magician's treasures to be turned out of odd nooks\nand corners and left about on the floor, and all his new quill pens to\nbe tried, and his clean sheets of note-paper to be scribbled over. And\nwhen they were tired of exploring the cave and had eaten as much\nplum-cake as they wanted, the magician saw it was the right moment to\nbegin telling them really true stories; and as he was a magician, of\ncourse his true stories were all fairy stories, which, as every one\nknows, are the only true stories in the world worth believing. But even\nthe stories came to an end at last, and then both the children\nremembered at once why they had come to see the magician.\n\n\"Well, what can I do for you?\" he asked, before they had time to say\nanything; for, truly, he would not have been a magician at all if he\nhad not known what they were thinking about. He smiled so encouragingly\nthat the little King answered him at once.\n\n\"It's like this,\" he began, \"there's something wrong with the way I see\nthings.\"\n\n\"Of course there is,\" said the magician: \"the wymps threw dust in your\neyes when you were a baby; and you cannot expect to see things in the\nsame light as other people when the wymps have once thrown dust in your\neyes.\"\n\n\"Why did they throw dust in my eyes?\" asked little King Wistful.\n\n\"Usual reason,\" answered the magician, briefly. \"They were not asked to\nyour christening, that's all. If people will persist in leaving the\nwymps out when they give a party, they must take the consequences.\nHowever, as you were not to blame in the matter, the wymps would be the\nfirst to own that you ought not to be bewymped any longer. The best\nthing you can do is to go up to Wympland yourself and ask them to take\naway the spell.\"\n\nThe little King looked at Eyebright and hesitated. \"It is a long way to\ngo all alone,\" he remarked; and Eyebright immediately stepped up to him\nand took his hand.\n\n\"I'll come with you,\" she said; \"I've always longed to go to the other\nside of the sun. How are we to get there, magician?\"\n\n\"Well,\" answered the magician, \"the usual way is to climb up a sunbeam,\nbut that's not very quick and sunbeams are apt to be slippery in the dry\nweather. Shall I send you up in a flash of lightning or on the spur of a\nlark?\"\n\n\"Spur of a lark!\" echoed the King. \"You mean on the spur of a moment,\ndon't you?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it,\" answered the magician; \"you'd never get up to\nWympland on the spur of anything but a lark, I can tell you! You have to\nget up there very early in any case, if you want to be even with the\nwymps; so the best way is to rise with the lark. However, as it is\ngetting rather late in the day for larks, I had better send you up in a\nlightning flash. Will you manage it alone, or shall I send a conductor\nwith it?\"\n\n\"Would the conductor show us the way?\" asked Eyebright.\n\n\"Dear me, no,\" said the magician. \"Lightning conductors never show\nanything but the stupidity of some people. Perhaps you'd better have the\nlightning without a conductor; so stand on one side, while I pick you\nout a nice quiet flash without any thunder hanging to it.\"\n\nHe took down a large sack, labelled _Storms_, from the shelf, untied the\ntop and plunged his head into it. Eyebright stole a little closer to the\nKing than before and hoped that nothing would go off with a bang.\n\n\"I say,\" said his Majesty, putting his arm round her, \"it strikes me--\"\n\n\"That is impossible,\" interrupted the magician in a stuffy voice from\nthe middle of the sack, \"for I've got it in both hands, and it isn't\ngoing to strike anybody so long as you treat it kindly. Now, off you go\nin a flash!\"\n\nAnd off they did go in something, though they never knew what it was,\nfor they had no time to see anything before they found themselves\ndropped with a thud on the other side of the sun. For a moment or two\nthey just lay where they had fallen without moving; then they sat up and\nrubbed their eyes and looked round.\n\n\"Oh!\" exclaimed Eyebright, clasping her hands tight; \"I had no idea it\nwas like this.\"\n\nOf course Eyebright knew no more about Wympland than she had learned in\nher geography lessons, and we all know how little geography books ever\ntell us about the really nice places in the world. So, although she\nknew as well as any other little girl that Wympland has no physical\nfeatures and its inhabitants have no occupation, that its climate is\ndull and foggy and its government is a sleeping monarchy, she was not in\nthe least prepared for what she did see.\n\n\"Well,\" said a voice somewhere near, \"what do you think of it?\"\n\nJust in front of them a wymp was standing on his head, which is a wymp's\nfavourite way of resting his legs. He seemed to expect an answer, so the\nKing did his best to think of one that should be both polite and\ntruthful. As a matter of fact, he did not think much of Wympland at all.\n\n\"It--it is rather full of fog, isn't it?\" he began, a little nervously.\n\nThe wymp looked distinctly hurt; but before he had time to get angry\nEyebright put things right in her quiet little way.\n\n\"I don't think it is yellow fog,\" she said; \"it is more like dull\nsunshine.\"\n\nThe wymp fairly wympled when he heard this.\n\n\"You've hit it!\" he cried in a delighted tone; \"that's what it is\nreally. It's the folks from the front of the sun who call it yellow fog;\nthey're blinded by their own sunshine, they are. This is the back of\nthe sun, you see, and the sunshine naturally loses a bit of its polish\nby the time it has worked through.\"\n\n\"I think I like bright sunshine best,\" observed the King.\n\n\"That is absurd!\" said the wymp. \"Why, you can't look at it without\nblinking, to begin with. In Wympland you get all the advantages of the\nsun and none of the drawbacks,--no sunblinds or sunstrokes or sunspots!\nYou must be a stupid boy if you can't see that!\"\n\n\"It is your fault, not mine,\" answered the King boldly; \"you shouldn't\nhave thrown dust in my eyes if you wanted me to see Wympland in the\nright light!\"\n\nThe wymp turned several somersaults to show his amazement at the King's\nwords, and finally stood thoughtfully on one leg.\n\n\"That's serious,\" he said. \"We didn't know you'd ever come up here, or\nwe shouldn't have done it. However, it can't be helped now, so you'd\nbetter go back again. It doesn't matter if you _do_ see things wrong--at\nthe front of the sun.\"\n\n\"But it does matter!\" they both exclaimed; \"and that's why we want you\nto take away the spell, please.\"\n\nThe wymp stood on his head again and shook it from side to side, which\nno one but a wymp could have done, considering the awkwardness of the\nposition. \"There's only one thing to be done,\" he said at last. \"You\nmust exchange eyes.\"\n\nThey stared at the wymp and then at each other. The little King began to\nthink busily, but Eyebright spoke without thinking at all.\n\n\"Very well,\" she said. \"How is it to be done?\"\n\n\"Quite easy,\" answered the wymp, cheerfully. \"All you've got to do is to\nwish with all your might to have the King's eyes instead of your own,\nand there you are!\"\n\nAt that moment the King finished his thinking. \"Stop!\" he shouted. \"If I\ntake her eyes away, _she_ will always see things wrong!\"\n\nBut the King had spoken too late. Eyebright had already wished with all\nher might, and her eyes had turned as blue as deep water while his\nMajesty's were round and large and brown.\n\n\"What fun!\" she cried, laughing happily. \"Isn't it a nice change to have\nsomebody else's eyes?\"\n\nThe little King, however, was far too furious to listen to her.\n\n\"Stand up and let me knock you down!\" he cried, shaking his fist at the\nwymp. \"Look what you have done. She will see things wrong to the end of\nher days!\"\n\n\"Don't be a foolish little boy,\" said the wymp, calmly. \"Take her home\nand try to see things right yourself.\"\n\nThe King certainly did not take her home, nor himself either; but it is\nthe truth that they both found themselves, the very next minute,\nstanding on the top of the small green hillock and looking down at the\nkingdom of the Monotonous Isles.\n\n\"Hurrah!\" shouted King Wistful, waving his crown joyfully. \"What a\nbeautiful kingdom I've got! Look how the sun glints on the cornfields,\nand see the great red and blue patches of flowers! Don't you think it\n_is_ a beautiful kingdom?\" he added, turning to the little girl in the\nsunbonnet.\n\nEyebright was distinctly puzzled. She _thought_ she only saw five round\nislands in a row. But, of course, it was impossible that the King should\nbe mistaken. So she looked once more over the kingdom of the Monotonous\nIsles and then back at the anxious face of the little King.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said softly, \"it is, as you say, a beautiful kingdom.\" Then\nshe ran down the hill and disappeared among the slender trees of the\nbaby wood, and little King Wistful went home to bed.\n\nThere is a Queen now as well as a King of the Monotonous Isles. She has\nblack hair and blue eyes, and she wears a crown instead of a sunbonnet,\nand she quite agrees with the King whenever he tells her how beautiful\ntheir kingdom is. And if this should seem remarkable to some people, it\nneed only be remembered that the Queen sees everything with the King's\neyes.\n\n\n\n\nThe Hundredth Princess\n\n\nThere was once a King who was so fond of hunting that all the rabbits in\nhis kingdom were born with their hearts in their mouths. The King would\nhave been extremely surprised to hear this, for, of course, he never\nhunted anything so small as a rabbit; but rabbits are foolish enough for\nanything, as all the world knows, and it is certain that the rabbits of\nthe King's forest would never have had a happy moment to this day, if\nthe Green Enchantress had not suddenly taken it into her head to try and\nbewitch the King.\n\nNow, the Green Enchantress was very beautiful indeed. She sat all day\nlong at the foot of an old lime-tree in the royal forest, and she was\ndressed all in green, and she had small white hands and great black eyes\nand quantities and quantities of dark red hair. Every animal in the\nforest, from the largest wild boar down to the smallest baby-rabbit, was\na friend of hers; and it made her dreadfully unhappy when she saw them\nbeing killed just to amuse the King. So it was no wonder that she made\nup her mind, at last, to try and bewitch him; and the first time she\ntried was on a fine summer evening, when the royal party was riding home\nfrom the hunt.\n\nIt had been an exceedingly dull hunt that day, for the King had found\nnothing whatever to kill, and this made him so exceedingly irritable\nthat his followers took care to keep a good way behind him as they rode\nalong. That was how it happened that the King was riding quite alone,\nwhen a voice suddenly called out to him from the side of the road.\n\n\"Good-evening, King!\" said the voice. \"Have you had good sport to-day?\"\n\nThe King pulled up his horse and looked round; and when he saw a\nwonderful-looking girl all dressed in green, sitting at the foot of an\nold lime-tree, he did not know quite what to say. He knew very little\nabout girls, for he had spent all his life in killing things, but he had\na sort of idea that the girl in green was not much like the princesses\nwho came to court.\n\n\"I have had no sport at all,\" he said at last. \"All the animals were\nhiding to-day.\"\n\n\"No doubt they were,\" said the Green Enchantress. \"So would you be, if\npeople came hunting you with great horrid spears and things!\"\n\nShe was really laughing at him, but the King had no idea of it. He only\nlooked at her more solemnly than before.\n\n\"What do you know about it?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Perhaps I know more about this forest than you know about the whole of\nyour kingdom,\" answered the Green Enchantress; and this time she laughed\noutright. But the King did not mind in the least.\n\n\"Perhaps you do,\" he said simply. \"I never pretended to know much. I do\nnot even know why you are laughing. Will you tell me?\"\n\n\"I am laughing because you know so little,\" she answered mysteriously,\n\"and because there is so much I could tell you if it pleased me.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt you could,\" replied the King. \"Will it please you to\ntell me now?\"\n\n\"I don't feel inclined to tell you now,\" said the Green Enchantress.\n\n\"How strange!\" exclaimed the King. \"If I had anything to tell, I should\ntell it at once; but then, I am not a girl. When will you tell me?\"\n\n\"Next time you come,\" laughed the girl in green.\n\n\"Next time?\" said the King. \"Why should I come twice when once would\ndo?\"\n\nShe did not trouble to answer that at all; and when the King looked\nagain at the old lime-tree, the girl in green had completely\ndisappeared.\n\n\"Is there a witch in the forest?\" he asked, when his followers came\nriding up to him.\n\n\"There is the Green Enchantress, your Majesty,\" answered the chief\nhuntsman. \"I have never seen her, but they say she is the most beautiful\nwoman in the whole world.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" said the King, in surprise; and he went home and spent the\nwhole of the evening in trying to remember what the girl in green had\nlooked like. He had quite forgotten, however; so the very next morning\nhe stole out of the palace long before any one was awake, and walked as\nfast as he could in the direction of the old lime-tree. The wild boars\nand the other animals were most surprised to see him there so early in\nthe day, and they followed him in twos and threes to see what he was\ngoing to do. As for the King, he strode on over the dewy grass and never\nnoticed them at all. And all the while the bracken on either side of\nhim was alive with trembling little rabbits, all squeaking to one\nanother, with their hearts in their mouths,--\n\n\"We shall certainly be killed if the King sees us!\"\n\nAt last he came to the old lime-tree at the side of the road; and there\nsat the wonderful girl all dressed in green, with her dark red hair\nfalling round her down to the ground. The King would have taken off his\ncrown to her, if he had not come out without it; but he made her a low\nbow instead, and the Green Enchantress began to laugh.\n\n\"Dear me!\" she said, \"why have you come back again?\"\n\n\"They told me you were the most beautiful woman in the world, so I came\nto see if it was true,\" said the King.\n\n\"And now you are here, do you think it is true?\" asked the girl in\ngreen.\n\n\"I suppose so,\" said the King, doubtfully; \"but I don't know much about\ngirls. If you were a wild boar, now, or----\"\n\n\"But I'm not a wild boar!\" cried the Green Enchantress; and she was so\nangry at being compared to a wild boar that she promptly threw a spell\nover the King and tried to turn _him_ into a wild boar. But the King\nwent on being a king, just the same as before, and he had no idea that\nhe was expected to be a wild boar at that very moment.\n\n\"When are you going to tell me all the things you know?\" he asked her,\nsmiling.\n\n\"I have forgotten what there was to tell,\" said the Green Enchantress,\nsulkily; and she got up and walked away among the trees. The King\nwondered what he had done to offend her, and he tried hard to remember\nwhether he had ever offended any of the princesses who came to court;\nbut as none of the princesses who came to court ever thought of showing\ntheir feelings, he would not have known if he had.\n\nMeanwhile the Green Enchantress was feeling very cross indeed. \"What is\nthe use of being an enchantress if people refuse to be enchanted?\" she\ngrumbled; and she ran off as fast as she could to find her godfather,\nthe magician Smilax, for nothing ever put her into such a good temper as\na visit to her godfather. Now, Smilax was the most amiable magician the\nworld has ever contained, and he lived in an ordinary little cottage\nwith a green door and a white doorstep and a red chimney-pot, and he did\nnot look like a magician at all. All the same, Smilax was by no means a\nstupid magician, as the rest of the story will show.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" he asked, when his godchild ran in at the door.\n\"Do you want me to teach you a new spell?\"\n\n\"No, indeed!\" cried the Green Enchantress. \"I am tired of spells; I want\nsomething much better.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said the kind old magician, \"let us hear what it is all\nabout, and then we'll see what we can do.\"\n\nIt was impossible to go on being cross when any one was as good-tempered\nas Smilax; so his godchild climbed at once on to the arm of his chair,\nand sat there with her little white feet dangling, while she told him\nall about the King who would not turn into a wild boar. \"Is it not\nhard,\" pouted the Green Enchantress, \"that I cannot bewitch the King?\"\n\n\"Some kings are easier to bewitch than others,\" remarked the magician,\nwisely. \"Now, what is it you want me to do for you?\"\n\n\"I want you to make me into a princess,\" said his godchild, promptly.\n\"Then I can go to court and dance with the King! Only think of it!\" And\nshe pretended that the poker was the King and danced round the room with\nit, to show how she should behave when she got to court.\n\n\"That's easily done,\" said Smilax. \"You shall go to court and dance with\nthe King, if you like; and I will make you so fine a princess that the\nKing will not be able to distinguish you from all the other princesses\nin the palace!\"\n\n\"But I don't want to be like all the other princesses, godfather; I want\nto be a _real_ princess,\" objected the Green Enchantress.\n\nSmilax shook his head. \"Then I cannot help you,\" he said. \"Nobody can\nmake a real princess,--not even the Fairy Queen herself. Real princesses\nmake themselves, and that is a very different matter.\"\n\n\"Shall I never go to court, then?\" asked his godchild, with tears in her\neyes.\n\n\"Of course you shall!\" said Smilax. \"Can you not go to court without\nbeing a princess? There is a back door to the palace as well as a front\none, and any ordinary person can get in at the back door. But you must\ngive up all your witchcraft the moment you set foot in the palace, for\nit is impossible to be an ordinary person and a bewitching one at the\nsame moment.\"\n\n\"I don't mind that,\" said his godchild. \"If I cannot bewitch the King I\ndo not want to be an enchantress any more. I will go to the palace this\nvery minute!\"\n\nAnd so she did, and that was how it came about that there was a new\nscullery-maid at the palace; and, one fine morning, the King met her all\namong the vegetables, as he took his stroll in the garden after\nbreakfast. It is extremely probable that the King would not have noticed\nher at all if she had not happened to be wearing a bright green\nhandkerchief tied over her dark red hair. He felt sure that he had seen\nthat bright green and that dark red somewhere before, so he stopped and\nlooked at her.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" he asked her, with a smile.\n\n\"I am picking beans for the King's dinner,\" answered the little\nscullery-maid.\n\n\"How extremely kind of you!\" exclaimed the King, who had always supposed\nthat the beans for his dinner picked themselves. \"Will you let me look\nat them?\"\n\nShe held out her basket, and the King peeped inside and found it full of\nbright scarlet flowers.\n\n\"Are those beans?\" asked the King in wonderment, and he thought he had\nnever seen anything so charming before.\n\n\"I _hope_ so,\" said the little scullery-maid with an anxious sigh, for\nshe knew no more about it than the King and was dreadfully afraid of\nbeing scolded for picking the wrong thing. Indeed, she had hardly\nfinished speaking when the angry voice of the chief cook called her from\nthe back door; and away she scampered down the garden path.\n\nEvery one noticed how absent-minded the King was at dinner, that day. He\ntalked even less than usual, and when the fifteenth course came round he\nturned reproachfully to the Prime Minister.\n\n\"I thought I was going to have beans for dinner,\" observed the King, in\na disappointed tone.\n\n\"Your Majesty has just helped himself to beans,\" said the Prime\nMinister, when he had recovered from his surprise at the King's remark.\n\n\"What?\" exclaimed the King, looking at his plate. \"Are these the\nbeautiful scarlet beans that grow in my kitchen-garden? Impossible!\"\n\n\"They turn green when they are cooked, your Majesty,\" said the Prime\nMinister, who had never seen a bean growing in his life but could not\npossibly have owned such a thing before the court.\n\n\"Then let me have my beans before they are cooked, in future,\" said the\nKing; and the Prime Minister hastily made a note of it on his clean\ncuff.\n\nThere was a magnificent ball at the palace that evening, and the King\nhad ninety-nine delightful princesses to dance with, but none of them\nhad dark red hair, and when he had finished dancing with the\nninety-ninth he once more turned reproachfully to the Prime Minister.\n\n\"Where is the hundredth Princess?\" he demanded impatiently.\n\nThe Prime Minister knew no more about the hundredth Princess than he had\nknown about beans, and he wished he had gone to bed instead of coming to\nthe court ball to be worried by the King's questions. He was too sleepy,\nhowever, to invent any more answers, so he had to tell the truth; and no\ndoubt he would have made a much better Prime Minister if he had always\nbeen too sleepy to invent things that were not true, but that, of\ncourse, has nothing to do with the story.\n\n\"I have never heard of the hundredth Princess, your Majesty,\" he said\nwearily. \"Would it please your Majesty to tell me what she is like?\"\n\nHe fully expected the King to be exceedingly angry, and he wondered\nwhether he should be beheaded at once or only imprisoned in one of the\nKing's dungeons. It was therefore a great surprise to him when the King\nburst out laughing and was not in the least offended.\n\n\"I never heard of her myself until this morning,\" said the King. \"She\nhas wonderful dark red hair, and she is so sweet and so kind that she\nactually picks the vegetables for my dinner!\"\n\nThe Prime Minister was so relieved at not being put into a dungeon that\nhe positively yawned in the King's presence; and the King, for the first\ntime in his life, noticed that he looked tired and sent him home to bed,\nwhich was certainly a much nicer place to send him to than a dungeon.\nAnd as for the Prime Minister, he went on speaking the truth to the end\nof his days.\n\nThe next morning, the King hastened into his garden the moment he had\nswallowed his breakfast. The chief huntsman met him just as he was\nleaving the palace, and asked him what time it would please him to start\nfor the hunt.\n\n\"Hunt?\" cried the King, impatiently. \"What hunt? I am going to pick the\nvegetables for my dinner, and that is ever so much more important!\" And\nhe ran down the steps and across the lawn, as never a King ran before.\n\nThe little scullery-maid was wandering among the gooseberry bushes with\na very disconsolate look on her face. \"I am looking for sage to stuff\nthe King's ducks with,\" she said, when the King came hurrying towards\nher; \"but I don't know a bit what it is like, and how can I be expected\nto pick things when I don't know what to pick?\"\n\n\"Do not look so distressed,\" said the King, for her eyes were full of\ntears. \"I am the King, and I do not mind whether my ducks are stuffed or\nnot.\"\n\n\"Ah, but the chief cook does,\" said the little scullery-maid, who, of\ncourse, had known all the while that he was the King. \"The chief cook\nwill beat me if I do not fill my basket with sage. Look! this is where\nhe beat me yesterday for bringing the wrong beans.\"\n\nShe rolled up her sleeve and showed him a tiny black speck on her dainty\nwhite arm. To be sure, it was not much of a bruise, but when one has\nbeen an enchantress all one's life it is a little hard to be beaten for\nnot knowing enough. The King was quite overcome with distress, and he\nstooped and kissed the little black mark tenderly; and that, as every\none knows, is the only way to cure a bruise.\n\n\"Come with me,\" he said, \"and I will help you to find some sage. Then\nthe King's ducks will be stuffed, and the chief cook will not be able to\nbeat you.\"\n\nSo the King and the scullery-maid wandered all over the kitchen-garden\nand hunted for sage. And the King knew just as much about it as the\nscullery-maid, and the scullery-maid knew as much as the King, and that\nwas just exactly nothing at all; so there is no doubt that the King's\nducks would never have got stuffed that day, if the pair of them had not\nsuddenly stumbled upon a bush of rosemary.\n\n\"Does it not smell sweet?\" exclaimed the little scullery-maid, and she\npicked a whole handful of it and gave it to the King.\n\n\"Surely,\" cried the King, \"anything so charming as this must be the very\nthing we are looking for!\"\n\nThe angry voice of the chief cook sounded once more from the back door,\nso they did not stop to think any more about it but filled the basket\nwith rosemary as fast as they could; and then away scampered the little\nscullery-maid down the path, while the King stood and watched the little\ncurls of dark red hair that fluttered in the breeze.\n\nThe chief cook was far too grand a person to stuff the King's ducks, so\nhe left it to the little scullery-maid; and the result was that the\nKing's ducks were stuffed with rosemary. There were only two people in\nthe palace who enjoyed their dinner that day: one was the King, who sat\nat the head of the royal table and had three helpings of roast duck; and\nthe other was the little scullery-maid, who sat on the back doorstep and\nate the scrapings of all the plates out of a big brown bowl. As for the\ncourtiers, they never forgot that dinner as long as they lived; but this\nwas not surprising, for ducks that are stuffed with rosemary are surely\nducks to be remembered.\n\nAfter that, the courtiers had to eat a good many nasty things for\ndinner. Every day the chief cook sent the little scullery-maid into the\ngarden to pick something for the King's dinner, and every day the King\ncame and helped her to find it; and although they never found the right\nthing and although it was generally very nasty, the King always ate\nthree helpings of it, and that was all that mattered to the chief cook.\nTo be sure, it was a lot of trouble to take, just to please the chief\ncook, and it would have been far simpler to have cut off his head then\nand there; but neither the King nor the scullery-maid thought of that.\nAfter all, it was much nicer to go on meeting each other among the\ngooseberry bushes, and it certainly saved the expense of an execution.\n\nBefore long people began to wonder what had come over the King. He never\nwent near the royal forest, and when he was not in the kitchen-garden he\nwas in the library, looking for books that would tell him the difference\nbetween a banana and a turnip and the best place to find a cauliflower.\nThe chief huntsman and all the other huntsmen had never been so dull in\ntheir lives; but the wild boars and all the other animals were as happy\nas the day was long. Even the rabbits began to pop up their heads above\nthe bracken, and were quite amazed when they found that no one was\nwaiting to kill them. \"Truly,\" they squeaked to one another, \"the Green\nEnchantress must have bewitched the King after all!\" And perhaps they\nwere not far wrong.\n\nNow, the same thing cannot go on for ever; and one morning, when the\nKing hastened out into the garden as usual, the scullery-maid saw at\nonce that he had something important to say.\n\n\"There is to be a ball to-morrow,\" he told her. \"The Prime Minister says\nso! And there will be ninety-nine princesses there besides yourself.\"\n\nThe little scullery-maid shook her head. \"I shall not be there,\" she\nsaid. \"I am only a scullery-maid; and no one, not even the Fairy Queen,\ncan make me into a real princess.\"\n\n\"You are the hundredth Princess,\" declared the King; \"and no one, not\neven the Fairy Queen, can make you into a scullery-maid.\"\n\n\"The ninety-nine other princesses have never picked the vegetables for\nthe King's dinner,\" sighed the little scullery-maid.\n\n\"They would never do anything half so sweet nor so kind,\" said the King.\n\n\"The ninety-nine other princesses,\" continued the little scullery-maid,\nlooking down at her crumpled print gown, \"have never worn such an old\nfrock as mine!\"\n\n\"Nor have they ever looked half so beautiful or so charming,\" said the\nKing.\n\nThe angry voice of the chief cook sounded loudly from the back door, and\nthe little scullery-maid turned to run down the path as usual. But,\nthis time, the King caught her by the hand and held her back.\n\n\"Will you come to the ball and dance with me?\" he asked coaxingly.\n\nShe looked very sad. \"I am not a real princess, you see,\" she sighed.\n\nThe angry voice of the chief cook sounded louder than before, and she\npulled away her hand and escaped down the path.\n\n\"Will you come to the ball?\" the King shouted after her.\n\n\"Perhaps!\" laughed the little scullery-maid over her shoulder, and the\nnext moment she was out of sight. It was truly a strange way of\naccepting an invitation to the King's ball; but then, she was the\nhundredth Princess, and perhaps that made all the difference.\n\nIt was a most magnificent ball; and the hundredth Princess _did_ come to\nit. For, just as the King finished dancing with the last of the\nninety-nine princesses, a great hubbub was heard in the hall outside;\nand into the room ran the little scullery-maid, and after her ran the\nchief cook with the soup-ladle in his hand, and after them both came the\nPrime Minister, and the chief huntsman, and the Lord High Executioner,\nand all the other people who were in the hall because they did not know\nhow to dance.\n\n\"Who are you?\" cried the ninety-nine princesses, as the little\nscullery-maid stood in front of them all, in her crumpled print gown,\nwith her green handkerchief tied over her head.\n\n\"Who are you?\" echoed all the courtiers and all the pages who happened\nto be there.\n\n\"She is nothing but a scullery-maid,\" cried the chief cook, brandishing\nhis soup-ladle.\n\n\"She is the Green Enchantress,\" gasped the chief huntsman.\n\n\"You are all talking rubbish,\" said the Prime Minister, who had\ncertainly lost some of his manners since he took to speaking the truth.\n\"Any one can see she is the hundredth Princess!\"\n\nBut it was the King who really settled the matter.\n\n\"She is the Queen, of course,\" he said gently, and came and took her by\nthe hand. And no one thought of contradicting him, for, although real\nprincesses have to make themselves, it is quite certain that any king\ncan make a queen.\n\nWhen the ninety-nine princesses saw how charming the little Queen was,\nthey crowded round her with one accord and gave her ninety-nine kisses.\nSo they were real princesses, after all! \"Tell us,\" they begged her\nafterwards, \"are you really the Green Enchantress?\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" she said; \"I gave up being an enchantress when I found I could\nnot bewitch the King.\"\n\n\"Why did you want to bewitch me, dearest?\" asked the King, in amazement.\n\n\"Because you were so fond of killing things,\" she said.\n\n\"Then I will never kill anything again as long as I live!\" vowed the\nKing.\n\nAnd that is the end of the story, for when the little rabbits heard that\nthe King had given up hunting, they all gave a great gulp and swallowed\ntheir hearts. And after that, there was no one in the kingdom who was\nnot happy, for everybody's heart was in the right place.\n\n\n\n\nSomebody Else's Prince\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nIn a country that is so far away that only wymps and fairies ever live\nlong enough to get there, an exceptional King and Queen once ruled over\ntheir five children, a devoted nation, and each other. Now, the five\nchildren had five gardens all in a row; and four of these belonged to\nthe King's four sons, and were just as beautiful as gardens cannot help\nbeing, which is surely beautiful enough for ordinary folk. The Princess\nGentianella, however, was anything but an ordinary princess; and her\ngarden, the one that came at the end of the row, was far more beautiful\nthan any one could possibly describe. This was hardly to be wondered at,\nfor, while the four Princes had to work very hard in their gardens\nbefore anything would grow in them, the fairies just came and breathed\non the Princess's garden, and everything that was bright to see and\nsweet to smell grew up in it. Even the wymps did not play any tricks\nwith the Princess's garden; for they had given her their warm little\nwympish hearts the moment she was born; so they allowed the sun to shine\non her charming flower-beds as much as it pleased--and, of course, it\npleased the sun to shine there very often indeed.\n\nNow, the Princess's garden was surrounded by a wall. When she was quite\na little girl, the King and Queen had ordered the wall to be built, just\nhigh enough to keep her from looking over it; and every time that the\nPrincess grew a little more, another row of bricks was added to the\nwall, so that, by the time she had stopped growing altogether, the wall\nwas ever so much higher than she was. She was such a dainty little\nPrincess, though, that even then it was not a very high wall. Still, it\nwas high enough to prevent her from seeing what was on the other side;\nand this annoyed her so much that all the pretty flowers the fairies\ncould give her did not make up for the things she was not tall enough to\nsee. The King and Queen had no idea of this; they loved their little\ndaughter extremely, and they only thought how clever and how wise they\nwere to keep her from looking into the world that lay outside her\ngarden. \"She might see something to frighten her, if she could see over\nthe wall,\" they said.\n\nThe four Princes had no walls round their gardens, and what was more,\nthey could see over the wall of their sister's garden, too; but they\nnever thought of telling her what they saw.\n\n\"Boys always have all the fun,\" sighed the little Princess. \"I wish I\nwere a boy!\"\n\nThen, one by one, the three elder Princes rode away into the world and\nleft their gardens to run to seed; and at last the time came for the\nKing's youngest son to go too.\n\n\"It will be dreadfully dull when you have gone away,\" said the Princess,\nwho was sitting on the grass-plot in her garden when Prince Hyacinth\ncame to say good-bye to her.\n\n\"Oh no,\" answered her brother, with a smile; \"you can still play in your\npretty garden.\"\n\nThe Princess pouted. \"_You_ would not like to play by yourself for ever\nand ever and ever,\" she remarked.\n\nThe Prince was sure he would not have liked it at all, but then, he was\nnot a little girl. \"It must be rather dull,\" he confessed; \"but perhaps,\nif you wait long enough, some other prince will come into your garden,\nand then you can ask him to play with you.\"\n\nThe Princess shook her head. \"He will never be able to get in,\" she\nsighed. \"Only look at that stupid high wall!\"\n\nPrince Hyacinth laughed outright, as princes sometimes do when their\nsisters are only little girls. \"I expect he'll be able to get in, if he\nis anything of a prince,\" he observed. Then he kissed her on both\ncheeks, and rode away like the others.\n\nThat was how the Princess Gentianella was left alone in the most\nbeautiful garden on this side of the sun. And if it had not been for the\nwymps, she might never have known to the end of her days what the world\nwas like on the other side of her wall. Fortunately for every one,\nhowever, the wymps are never far off when a charming little princess is\nin trouble; and on the very day that the King's youngest son rode away\ninto the world, one of the nicest and the naughtiest and the wympiest\nwymps of all came head first through the sun, and was sitting on the top\nof the Princess's wall with his legs dangling, before she had time to\nsay \"Oh!\"\n\n\"Come now,\" said the wymp, \"let's hear all about it.\" His tone was so\nexceedingly friendly, and he seemed so unlikely to give her good advice,\nwhich was all that a fairy would have done, that the Princess\nGentianella dried her eyes and told him everything. When she had\nfinished, the wymp stood on his head to concentrate his thoughts, and\nreflected deeply.\n\n\"Will _you_ tell me what is on the other side of my wall?\" asked the\nPrincess Gentianella, as the wymp remained in this remarkable position\nwithout speaking. She did not know that it never makes much difference\nto a wymp whether he is on his head or his heels, so she was naturally\nafraid that he would make his head ache if he stood on it any longer.\nHowever, the wymp came through the air in somersaults, when he heard the\nPrincess's question, and he landed in the middle of a bed of scarlet\npoppies and twinkled at her.\n\n\"You won't like it, if I do,\" he remarked.\n\n\"I am quite positive I shall,\" declared the Princess; \"and you are such\na particularly nice kind of wymp that you surely cannot refuse to tell\nme!\"\n\nNo wymp of the right sort could have resisted an appeal like that; and\nas every wymp is the right sort of wymp, this particular wymp at once\ndid as the Princess asked him.\n\n\"All right,\" he said. \"There isn't much to tell, though. There are the\nusual rows of mountains, and the usual rivers and lakes and islands and\npeninsulas and--\"\n\n\"Don't!\" cried the Princess, stopping up her ears with her little pink\nfinger-tips.\n\n\"--and isthmuses,\" continued the wymp, cheerfully; \"and volcanoes, and\nhot springs and cold springs, and palm-trees and apple-trees and\nboot-trees--\"\n\n\"I don't believe,\" interrupted the Princess, indignantly, \"that there is\nnothing but a stupid geography book on the other side of my wall!\"\n\nThe wymp looked at her and twinkled more than ever; but when he saw that\nher eyes were shining, just as her own flowers might have done at the\ntime of the dew-fall, he stopped teasing her at once. No one knows\nbetter than a wymp when it is time to stop teasing.\n\n\"Hullo!\" he said. \"What is the matter now?\"\n\n\"I thought I should see something quite different,\" said the Princess,\nplaintively.\n\n\"So you would, my little dear,\" cried the wymp. \"I was only telling you\nwhat _I_ saw. Give me those two ridiculous little hands of yours, and\nyou shall see everything that I didn't.\"\n\nThis time the Princess Gentianella did say \"Oh!\" and she said it because\nshe found herself sitting on the top of her wall, with all the world on\nthe other side of it lying stretched out before her, for miles and\nmiles and miles. She did not see very much at first, though, for she\nlooked no further than the little corner of it that lay just under her\neyes.\n\n\"Why,\" said the Princess, softly, \"there is a garden on the other side\nof my wall. And only look, there is a real Prince in the middle of it!\"\n\nShe turned round to tell her wymp all about it, but the wymp had other\nwork to do and was already on his way to the back of the sun. So there\nwas nothing for it but to look over the wall again, and this time the\nPrince glanced up and saw her.\n\nNow, Prince Amaryllis had been waiting a great many days for some one to\nappear at the top of the wall, but now that some one really had appeared\nthere and was looking so extremely glad to see him, he suddenly found he\nhad nothing whatever to say to her. That is what occasionally happens to\nthe most charming of princes. Fortunately, however, the Princess knew\nperfectly well what to say to him.\n\n\"I knew there would be something nice on the other side of my wall,\" she\ncried. \"The wymp was quite wrong, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"No doubt he was, if you say so,\" answered the Prince, who had never\nnoticed the wymp at all. \"But how is it, little lady, that you can see\nme?\"\n\nThe Princess opened her big eyes and stared at him. \"How can I help\nseeing you, if you are there?\" she asked.\n\n\"But I'm not here, that's just it,\" explained Prince Amaryllis; \"at\nleast, I am not supposed to be. You see, I have been invisible all my\nlife, and you are the first person, outside my own country, who has ever\nbeen able to see me. I am very glad you can see me,\" he added politely;\n\"one gets a little tired sometimes of being heard and not seen.\"\n\n\"When I was a little girl,\" said Princess Gentianella, drawing herself\nup to her full height, \"I was always taught to be seen and not heard.\nThat was very dull, too. But tell me, why is it that you are invisible?\"\n\n\"Alas!\" said the Prince. \"The whole of my country is invisible, too.\nTell me what you can see, Princess, from the top of your wall.\"\n\n\"I can see you,\" answered the little Princess, promptly.\n\n\"But do you see nothing else?\" asked Prince Amaryllis.\n\nThe Princess shaded her eyes with her hand and looked away into the\ndistance. \"I can see a large flat plain, with no trees and no rivers\nand no people and no houses,\" she answered presently.\n\nPrince Amaryllis sighed. \"You are looking right into my country,\" he\nsaid dolefully, \"and it is every bit as full of trees and rivers and\npeople and houses as anybody else's country. Do you not hear anything\neither?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Princess Gentianella; \"I can hear the murmur of voices\nand the ripple of rivers and the rustle of trees. I have heard those\nsounds all my life, but I thought they were in the wind.\"\n\n\"Nothing of the sort,\" replied the Prince. \"They are the sounds that\nbelong to my country, where everybody is heard and not seen. It all\nbegan with a christening-party, a hundred years ago. My\ngreat-grandfather was King then, and he was the most absent-minded king\nthat has ever ruled over us, and he forgot to ask the Witch to dance\nwith him, which, of course, offended her deeply. And it happened that\nshe was a witch who was always making experiments, so she experimented\non my country at once by making it invisible, and it has been invisible\never since.\"\n\n\"How strange!\" said Princess Gentianella. \"I never remember hearing any\none talk about your country.\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" sighed the Prince; \"you can't expect people to talk\nabout a thing that isn't there, can you? You have no idea how stupid it\nis to live in a place that no one can see.\"\n\n\"But why does not someone disenchant your kingdom?\" asked the Princess,\nwho had read quite enough history to know that kingdoms are always\ndisenchanted sooner or later.\n\n\"That is what I am trying to do,\" answered Prince Amaryllis. \"The spell\ncan only be removed if a king's son will spend a whole year in this\nwaste piece of ground and make it into a beautiful garden. But although\nI have been here nearly a year, I have not been able to make a single\nflower grow. It is a little tiresome,\" he added with another sigh, \"for\nit is part of the spell that I shall have to be executed if I fail.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" exclaimed the little Princess. \"You are much too nice to be\nexecuted! Won't you let me come and play in your garden? Perhaps I might\nhelp you to make the flowers grow.\"\n\nPrince Amaryllis shook his head and smiled. \"It is not a nice garden to\nplay in,\" he said. \"I think I will come and play in yours instead, and\nyou shall teach me the way to make the flowers grow.\"\n\nSo the Prince jumped over the wall into the Princess's garden, and they\nwalked about, hand in hand, among all the bright flower-beds that the\nfairies had planted there. They did not play very much, though, for they\nhad so many things to talk about; and they talked and talked and talked,\nwithout stopping a moment, for the rest of the afternoon. For all that,\nwhen tea-time came and the Prince went back into his own garden, he\nremembered all sorts of things he might have said to the Princess if he\nhad only thought of them in time; while Princess Gentianella, in the\nmiddle of her second cup of tea, also remembered all the things she\nmight have said to the Prince, only she had not said them. That is\nalways the way with princes and princesses who are carefully brought up.\n\nAfter that, Princess Gentianella and Prince Amaryllis played together\nfor a number of days. But they always played in the Princess's garden,\nbecause it was a much nicer garden to play in; and as for the Prince's\ngarden, they seemed to have forgotten that altogether. Then, one\nafternoon, when the Princess ran out as usual into the hot sunshine, her\nPrince from over the wall met her with a very disconsolate face.\n\n\"The year has come to an end,\" he told her, \"and since I cannot make the\nflowers grow in my garden, I shall have to go and be executed as soon as\nthe Witch sends for me.\"\n\nThe little Princess's lips began to quiver, and her eyes grew large and\nround and shining. \"It is too bad,\" she declared, \"to execute a really\nnice Prince like you!\"\n\n\"Do not be distressed,\" replied Prince Amaryllis, in a resigned tone.\n\"Now that I have seen you, little lady, I shall be almost glad to be\nexecuted.\"\n\n\"You are talking nonsense,\" declared the Princess. \"Why do you want to\nbe executed?\"\n\n\"Because, even if I knew the way to make the flowers grow,\" he replied,\n\"my country would not be disenchanted unless I married Anemone, the\nWitch's daughter, as well. And, of course, I would sooner be executed\nthan do that!\"\n\n\"What!\" exclaimed the Princess; \"you have promised to marry a witch's\ndaughter? Do you mean to say that all this while I have been playing\nwith somebody else's Prince?\"\n\nThere was no doubt that the Princess Gentianella was extremely angry;\nand the Prince could not help thinking that she was just a little bit\nunreasonable as well.\n\n\"You see, it was part of the disenchantment,\" he explained. \"If _you_\nhad to be invisible all your life, you would promise anything to get\ndisenchanted. Besides,\" he added, as the Princess showed no signs of\nbeing appeased, \"they told me that Anemone, although a witch's daughter,\nwas exceedingly beautiful.\"\n\n\"What difference does that make?\" demanded the Princess. \"You ought to\nhave told me before, that you were somebody else's Prince. You haven't\nbeen playing fair!\"\n\n\"It is true I forgot to mention it,\" said the Prince, a little crossly;\n\"but one cannot remember everything, you know.\"\n\nPrincess Gentianella gathered up her train with much dignity and turned\nher back on the Prince.\n\n\"People who are as forgetful as that deserve to be invisible,\" she\nobserved haughtily; and with that she swept up the garden path and into\nthe palace. She lost all her dignity, however, as soon as she was out of\nthe Prince's sight; and it was a very doleful little Princess who came\nto take tea with her royal parents that afternoon. When she even went so\nfar as to say that she preferred bread-and-butter to plum-cake, the\nKing and Queen began to be seriously alarmed.\n\n\"What is the matter with the child?\" asked the Queen of the King.\n\n\"Perhaps she has a sunstroke,\" suggested the King, who thought that only\nillness could possibly prevent a daughter of his from eating her\nplum-cake at tea-time. The Queen knew better, but she waited until the\nKing had gone back into his study before she said anything. Then she\nsaid the very best thing possible.\n\n\"What did you see when you looked over your wall, little daughter?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"There was a prince on the other side,\" confessed the Princess\nGentianella.\n\n\"To be sure, there was,\" smiled the Queen. \"There is always a prince on\nthe other side; but why should that make you unhappy? Is he not a nice\nprince?\"\n\n\"He is a _real_ Prince,\" said her little daughter; \"and I should not be\nat all unhappy if he had not just told me that he is somebody else's\nPrince!\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" said the Queen, consolingly; \"you will soon find another\nprince in your garden.\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"But not _that_ Prince,\" wept the poor little Princess.\n\n\"One prince is much the same as another,\" said the Queen; but she did\nnot think so for a moment, and no more did the little Princess.\n\nNow, it was quite true that Prince Amaryllis had not been playing fair,\nand that his forgetfulness was enough to annoy the nicest little\nPrincess in the world; but for all that, he was going to be executed,\nand it is difficult to be angry for long with anyone who is just going\nto be executed. So, when Princess Gentianella ran out once more into the\nsunshine on the following morning, she was fully prepared to make\nfriends with her Prince from over the wall. She was greatly disturbed to\nfind, however, that there was no one to make friends with; and although\nshe called the Prince's name several times, not an answer came from the\nother side of the wall. Then the Princess Gentianella did what she had\nnever been brave enough to do before,--she shut her eyes and jumped; and\neither she jumped higher than so small a princess ever jumped before, or\nelse the wall was not nearly such a high wall as she had always thought\nit was, for the next moment she found herself on her two little feet in\nthe very middle of the Prince's garden. She was very close to the\ninvisible country now, and the people's voices were so loud that she\ncould actually hear what they were saying. This was not really\nsurprising, though, for they were all saying the same thing.\n\n\"Our Prince cannot make the flowers grow, and the Witch has taken him\naway to be executed,\" was what they were saying.\n\nWhen the Princess Gentianella heard that, she dropped straight down on\nthe ground and burst into tears, and her tears rained all over the\ngarden in showers; and wherever they fell, the flowers began to\ngrow,--first of all, snowdrops and primroses and daffodils, then red\npoppies and blue larkspurs and white lilies, then hollyhocks and\nnasturtiums and mignonette, and last of all, roses,--red roses, pink\nroses, yellow roses, all sorts of roses. And the scent from all these\nflowers was so delicious that the little Princess lifted her head at\nlast and looked round.\n\n\"Oh!\" she cried, starting to her feet; \"some one _has_ made the flowers\ngrow in the Prince's garden!\"\n\n\"Some one certainly has,\" chuckled a voice from the top of the wall; and\nthere sat the same wymp as before, looking just as though he had never\ngone away to the back of the sun at all. At the same instant, the\npeople's voices sounded louder than ever from the kingdom close by.\n\n\"The flowers have learned the way to grow in the Prince's garden,\" they\nwere shouting; \"and the Prince will not be executed, after all!\"\n\nPrincess Gentianella danced for joy, in and out of the Prince's bright\nflower-beds. \"The Prince will not be executed, after all,\" she said,\ntoo.\n\n\"And he will be able to marry Anemone, the Witch's beautiful daughter,\"\nadded the wymp.\n\nAll the laughter died out of Princess Gentianella's face, and she looked\nup at the wymp in a very woe-begone manner indeed.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said piteously, \"I never thought of that. I--I had quite\nforgotten that he was somebody else's Prince.\"\n\nThe wymp fairly wimpled when he saw the poor little Princess looking so\nunhappy. \"Don't you fret about that, my little dear,\" he cried. \"Do you\nsuppose the Witch's daughter wants anybody else's Prince, either?\"\n\nPrincess Gentianella clapped her hands with delight. \"Of course she\ndoesn't!\" she cried. \"But perhaps she does not know he is somebody\nelse's Prince.\"\n\n\"Then go and tell her so,\" suggested the wymp; and before she had time\nto thank him for his advice he had gone off once more to the back of the\nsun.\n\nThe little Princess did not stop to think about it, but just ran as fast\nas she could towards the invisible kingdom of Prince Amaryllis. It might\nseem a little difficult to run towards a place that did not appear to be\nthere, but to any one who was in as great a hurry as the little Princess\na thing like that was of very small consequence. So she ran and she ran\nand she ran, until the Prince's kingdom was really obliged to stop being\ninvisible, for in all the hundred years that it had been bewitched no\none had ever tried so hard to see it before. Besides, it would have been\nmost impolite of anybody's kingdom to go on pretending that it was not\nthere, when the Princess was so determined to pretend that it was; so in\nthe end she suddenly found herself in the middle of a country that was\nas full of trees and rivers and people and houses as any other country,\nand the particular part of it in which she found herself was a nice\ngreen field full of woolly sheep.\n\n\"What a charming kingdom!\" exclaimed Princess Gentianella. \"How green\nthe trees are, and how fresh everything looks! Why, there is not a\nspeck of dust to be seen.\"\n\n\"Of course there isn't,\" answered a jolly little lamb, who was trying,\nas lambs will, to behave as though he had only two legs instead of four.\n\"Dust, indeed! When a kingdom has not been seen for a hundred years,\nnaturally it keeps fresher than a kingdom that any one can stare at.\nNothing fades a kingdom like staring at it, you know. However, all this\nwill soon be altered, for I hear that the Prince has made the flowers\ngrow in his garden; so all he has to do now is to marry the Witch's\ndaughter, and then we shall be disenchanted at last.\"\n\n\"Oh no, you won't!\" said Princess Gentianella, shaking her finger at him\nwisely.\n\n\"Why not?\" asked the lamb, standing still for the first time in his\nlife.\n\n\"Because the Prince is _not_ going to marry the Witch's daughter,\"\nanswered Princess Gentianella; and she ran on before the lamb had time\nto recover from his astonishment.\n\nDown a curly white road ran the little Princess, between two of the\ngreenest hedges she had ever seen, until she came to a stile. Now, she\nhad never climbed a stile in her life, so of course she did not know\nwhat to do next. However, there stood the stile waiting to be climbed,\nand there stood the Princess feeling very much inclined to cry, when it\nhappened most fortunately that an old woodcutter came strolling along.\nHe was a particularly cross-looking woodcutter, but the Princess was in\nfar too great a hurry to notice that.\n\n\"If you please,\" she said as politely as she could, \"will you lift me\nover this great, big, high stile?\"\n\nThe woodcutter at once did as he was asked, and then was so surprised at\nhis own kindness that he stood and stared at the little Princess.\n\n\"Well, I never!\" he exclaimed. \"That's the first time in my life I ever\ndid anything to please anybody. Are you a witch?\"\n\n\"No, but I am looking for one,\" said Princess Gentianella. \"Can you tell\nme where she is?\"\n\n\"If you mean the one whose daughter is going to marry the Prince, I\nthink I can,\" replied the woodcutter, who thought he might as well go on\nbeing kind, now that he had once begun.\n\n\"That is certainly not the witch I mean,\" answered the Princess,\npromptly, \"for the Prince is _not_ going to marry any witch's daughter!\"\nAnd she ran on faster than ever.\n\nPresently she came to a brook that was covered with ice.\n\n\"Dear me!\" cried Princess Gentianella. \"It was springtime round the\ncorner, and here have I tumbled into the middle of winter!\"\n\nA fish popped his head through the ice, and laughed from ear to\near,--two things that he could do quite easily, for he happened to be a\nskate. \"The seasons have been mixed up in this country ever since we\nwere bewitched, a hundred years ago,\" he said. \"It is no use being\nparticular about the time of year when there is no one to see what kind\nof weather you are having. If you stand on tiptoe you will see summer\ngoing on in the next field.\"\n\n\"It must be very difficult to know what clothes to put on, when you take\na walk in this country,\" remarked the Princess. \"But, of course, it\ndoesn't matter what you do wear when there is no one to look at you!\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said the skate, \"things will soon be altered, and the\nseasons will have to right themselves again, for I am told that Prince\nAmaryllis is going to marry the Witch's daughter, and so the country\nwill be disenchanted at last.\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" laughed the little Princess, knowingly. \"Don't you believe\neverything you are told! The Prince is going to do nothing of the\nsort!\"\n\nThen she ran away from the skate and the frozen brook, and she ran right\nout of winter into the middle of summer; and she might have gone on\nrunning until she reached the middle of autumn too, if she had not been\nstopped by an enormous sea-serpent who was lying stretched across the\nroad. When the sea-serpent saw the Princess, of course he flapped his\nfifty-five fins at her, and lashed his tail about furiously, and growled\nin a hoarse, fishy voice. But the Princess mistook his fury for\npoliteness. When one has lived in a garden with a wall round it and\nnever seen a sea-serpent in one's life, one is apt to make these\nmistakes.\n\n\"I am very pleased to meet you,\" she said, with her most charming smile;\n\"I have often wanted to meet a dragon.\"\n\n\"She calls me a dragon!\" groaned the sea-serpent, foaming like the sea\nin a tempest; \"and I am connected with the very best family of\nsea-serpents! What will people say next?\"\n\n\"I am very sorry,\" said the Princess, humbly. \"You see, I thought, as\nyou were not in the sea--\"\n\n\"I was expecting that,\" interrupted the sea-serpent, bitterly. \"No one\never will believe in me unless I stop in the sea. It is very\ndepressing!\"\n\n\"I am sure I am very glad you have come out of the sea,\" said the\nPrincess, politely, \"because it has given me the pleasure of meeting\nyou. But does it not make you very thirsty to lie in this hot dusty\nroad?\"\n\n\"Not nearly so thirsty as stopping in the sea and having nothing but\nsalt water to drink,\" answered the sea-serpent. \"People do not realise\nwhat a thirsty life a sea-serpent has to lead. If they did,\" he added\nseverely, \"they would not stand in front of him and ask so many\nquestions!\"\n\nThe Princess laughed merrily. \"I do not want to stand here at all,\" she\nexplained; \"but unless you move your tail a little on one side, I really\ncannot get past.\"\n\n\"If you do get past,\" growled the sea-serpent, \"you will fall into the\nWitch's hands.\"\n\n\"That is exactly where I want to fall!\" cried Princess Gentianella;\n\"only you must move your tail a little bit more than that, or else I am\nafraid I shall step on it.\"\n\nIt was such a novelty for the sea-serpent to find some one who was not\nfrightened of him, that he had not the heart to tell her that he was\njust going to eat her up. So he moved his tail out of the way, and\nPrincess Gentianella blew a kiss to him from the tips of her little pink\nfingers and ran on as before.\n\nThe next person she met was an old woman, who was picking thistles in a\nfield.\n\n\"I wonder why you are doing that!\" said the Princess, opening her big\nblue eyes.\n\n\"I am making an experiment, to see if I can find any one with so brave a\nheart that the thistles will not be able to hurt it,\" answered the old\nwoman, mysteriously.\n\n\"But does it not scratch your fingers to gather those large prickly\nthistles?\" asked the little Princess.\n\n\"Perhaps it does,\" the old woman said shortly; \"but who do you suppose\nis going to gather them for me?\"\n\nShe seemed rather cross, but the Princess supposed it was because she\nhad pricked her fingers so much.\n\n\"Well, I am in a most tremendous hurry, but I think I can stop and help\nyou,\" she answered; and down she dropped on her knees and began to pick\nthistles as fast as she could. And when the thistles saw what soft pink\nfingers were going to take hold of them, they at once bent back all\ntheir prickles and allowed the Princess to gather as many as she\npleased without giving her so much as a scratch. When she had filled the\nold woman's apron for her, she began to run off at full speed, to make\nup for lost time. But the old woman called her back.\n\n\"Stop!\" she cried. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"I am going to find the Witch's daughter,\" answered Princess\nGentianella, looking back impatiently.\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" said the old woman. \"May I ask what you want with her?\"\n\n\"I want to tell her not to marry Prince Amaryllis, because he is not her\nPrince but somebody else's Prince,\" said Princess Gentianella.\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" said the old woman again. \"And whose Prince may he be,\nthen?\"\n\n\"He is my Prince, of course!\" answered the little Princess, laughing\nhappily; and then away she ran across the field, and into the wood that\nlay beyond.\n\nIn the wood, under a hazel-tree, sat a tall and beautiful girl, weeping\nbitterly.\n\n\"Oh dear, oh dear!\" said Princess Gentianella, mournfully. \"How\ndreadfully sorry I am!\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked the girl, looking up at her.\n\n\"Because you are crying, to be sure,\" answered the Princess. \"Will you\ntell me why you are so sad?\"\n\n\"My mother, who is always making experiments, wants me to marry a Prince\nI have never seen, just to see how we should like it,\" explained the\ngirl. \"And all the while, I am somebody else's Princess!\"\n\n\"That is very strange,\" remarked Princess Gentianella. \"Now _I_ am sad\nbecause my Prince has got to marry Anemone, the Witch's beautiful\ndaughter, and I am trying to find her to tell her that he is really my\nPrince. Do you think she will want to marry him, when she hears that he\nis somebody else's Prince?\"\n\nThe beautiful girl suddenly sprang to her feet and began to laugh\njoyfully. \"I am sure she will not,\" she answered, \"for _I_ am Anemone,\nthe Witch's daughter. So nobody will have to marry anybody's Prince\nexcept her own, and the witch will not be able to make experiments any\nmore!\"\n\n\"That is settled, then,\" said the little Princess, contentedly. \"Now let\nus go and find our Princes. But supposing that I find your Prince first,\nhow shall I know that he _is_ your Prince?\"\n\n\"His name is Hyacinth,\" answered the Witch's daughter.\n\n\"How delightful!\" cried Princess Gentianella, clapping her hands. \"Then\nI shall find my youngest brother as well as my Prince. But do you know\nwhere they are?\"\n\nAnemone, the Witch's daughter, began to look a little doubtful. \"I have\njust remembered,\" she confessed, \"that I sent Hyacinth to kill your\nPrince, only a few minutes before you came along. Do not be anxious,\nhowever,\" she added hastily, \"for perhaps he will not be able to find\nhim.\"\n\nThe Princess Gentianella was not at all anxious. \"Nobody could possibly\nbe strong enough to kill my Prince,\" she observed; \"and as for Hyacinth,\nhe will be quite safe, for Prince Amaryllis is much too nice to hurt any\none!\"\n\nShe proved to be right, for in another minute they saw the two Princes\ncoming towards them arm in arm. And if this should seem extraordinary,\nit must be remembered that it all took place in an enchanted wood, where\na witch had been making experiments for hundreds and hundreds of years.\n\n\"There was no necessity to kill him, dearest,\" cried Prince Hyacinth,\n\"for he is somebody else's Prince.\"\n\nHe held out his arms as he spoke, and into them ran Anemone, the Witch's\ndaughter, and of course there is no need to tell into whose arms the\nlittle Princess ran. After that, there was nothing to be heard in the\nwood except kissing, until the Witch suddenly stepped on the scenes.\n\n\"Cobwebs and broomsticks! What is the meaning of this?\" she cried\nfuriously.\n\nThree of them turned round and faced her in an extremely nervous manner;\nfor, after all, a witch is a witch, and they knew fast enough that she\ncould turn them into any shape she pleased. The Princess Gentianella did\nnot seem nervous, however.\n\n\"Why, you are the nice old lady I met in the field,\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"I believe I am,\" said the Witch, who had never been called a nice old\nlady in her life before, and was not quite sure how to take it.\n\n\"I have found my Prince, you see,\" continued the little Princess,\nsmiling away as happily as possible.\n\n\"So it seems,\" said the Witch. She was afraid to say more than that, in\ncase the Princess should find out who she was, and she thought she would\nlike to be a nice old lady a little longer first.\n\n\"And have you found any one yet who has so brave a heart that the\nthistles cannot hurt it?\" asked Princess Gentianella.\n\n\"I think I have,\" said the Witch.\n\n\"Then we have all found what we want,\" smiled Princess Gentianella, \"and\nthe Witch cannot surely be so unkind as to refuse to disenchant the\nkingdom, just because her daughter doesn't want to marry my Prince! Do\nyou think she can?\"\n\nThe Witch dropped her thistles and held out her hands to the eager\nPrincess. \"My dear little girl,\" she said, \"the kingdom was disenchanted\nthe moment you came into it. As for the Witch, there is no Witch any\nlonger, for she retired into private life as a nice old lady, just ten\nminutes ago. Now, as you all seem to have sorted yourselves the right\nway, the best thing you can do is to go off home as fast as you can.\"\n\nNo doubt that is where Anemone must have gone with her Prince, for when\nthe little Princess looked round and found herself standing once more in\nher own garden, there was no one with her except Prince Amaryllis.\n\n\"_Now_ may I come and play in your garden?\" asked Princess Gentianella,\nsoftly.\n\nThe Prince still shook his head. \"I have a much better idea than that,\"\nhe said; \"we will pull down the wall and make it all into one garden.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Tears of Princess Prunella\n\n\nThere is no doubt that the Princess Prunella would have been the most\ncharming little girl on either side of the sun, if she had not been so\nexceedingly cross and discontented. She was as pretty as any one could\nwish to see, and as accomplished as all the gifts of Fairyland could\nmake her; and she had every bit of happiness that the love of her\nparents and the wit of her fairy godmother could put in her way. And yet\nshe grumbled and grumbled and grumbled!\n\n\"Can you not try to be happy, just for five minutes?\" asked the Queen,\nin despair.\n\n\"How can you expect me to be happy, even for five minutes, when every\nfive minutes is exactly like the last five minutes?\" sighed the little\nPrincess.\n\n\"It is tea-time, your Highness,\" said the head nurse, coaxingly, \"and\nthere are pink sugar cakes for tea!\"\n\n\"There were pink sugar cakes yesterday,\" pouted the Princess. \"There are\nalways pink sugar cakes unless there are white sugar cakes, and I am\nequally tired of them both. Can you not tell me something new?\"\n\n\"Let her go without her tea,\" said the King, who was rather tired of\nhaving such a cross little daughter. But the Queen only smiled.\n\n\"The child wants a change,\" she remarked. \"It must be very dull to play\nalone all day.\"\n\n\"Dull!\" exclaimed the King. \"Why should it be dull? Has not her\ngodmother given her such wonderful toys that they can play with her as\nwell as be played with?\" This was quite true, for the very ball that the\nPrincess threw to the other end of the nursery could catch itself and\nthrow itself back to her; and it is not every ball that can do that.\n\"What more can the child want?\" demanded the King, crossly.\n\nThe Queen, however, thought there might be something more. \"We must find\nher a playfellow,\" she said wisely.\n\n\"Stuff and nonsense!\" protested the King. \"Why should we bring any more\ncrying children into the palace? However, you must do as you like, I\nsuppose.\"\n\nThe King always told the Queen to do as she liked when he was tired of\nthe conversation; so the Queen smiled again and issued a proclamation\nat once, to tell the whole world that the Princess Prunella wanted some\none to play with, and would be ready to choose a playfellow that day\nweek, at twelve o'clock in the morning. Now, it is not often that one\ngets a chance of playing with a King's daughter, so it is no wonder\nthat, when the Princess followed her royal parents into the great hall\non the appointed day, she found it filled from end to end with all the\nlittle princes and princesses and all the little counts and countesses\nand all the little dukes and duchesses that the surrounding kingdoms\ncould produce.\n\n\"I never had a more excellent idea,\" said the Queen, as she seated\nherself on the throne and looked down at the crowd of children.\n\"Prunella has talked of nothing else for a whole week, and she has not\nbeen heard to grumble once.\"\n\n\"That's all very well,\" observed the King, a little uneasily; \"but it is\nquite clear that she cannot play with them all, and who knows that so\nmuch disappointment will not lead to a war?\"\n\nThe Queen did not answer but turned to her little daughter, who stood by\nher side. \"Do not be in a hurry,\" she said to her. \"So many faces are\nconfusing at first, and you might regret it afterwards if you made a\nmistake.\"\n\nBut Princess Prunella showed no signs of being in a hurry. She just\nglanced over the sea of faces that were turned towards her, and then\nlooked speechlessly at her mother. The smiles had all gone from her\nface, and the big blue eyes were filled with tears.\n\n\"Why, they are all exactly alike!\" she said piteously. \"I cannot tell\none from another.\" And to the astonishment of every one in the room, she\ndropped down on the steps of the throne and began to cry.\n\n\"Dear, dear! What is to be done?\" exclaimed the Queen, in much alarm.\n\"It will look so very bad if all the children have to be sent home\nagain!\"\n\n\"It will certainly lead to a war,\" was all the King said; and then they\nboth looked helplessly at their sobbing little daughter. As for all the\nchildren, they were so surprised at hearing how much alike they were\nthat they said nothing at all; and it is difficult to tell what would\nhave been the end of the matter, if the Princess had not suddenly jumped\nto her feet again and pointed towards the door.\n\n\"There is the Prince I should like to play with,\" she exclaimed. \"_He_\nis not like the others, for he has a wonderful look on his face.\"\n\nEverybody looked round at the doorway; and, sure enough, there stood a\nboy whom no one had noticed before. \"Come here, Prince,\" commanded the\nPrincess, raising her voice haughtily; \"you may kiss my hand if you\nlike.\"\n\nBut the boy drew back with a bewildered air and shook his head. Princess\nPrunella stamped her foot angrily.\n\n\"How dare you hesitate when I tell you to come here?\" she cried. At\nthis, however, the strange boy turned and hastened out of the room\naltogether; and a loud murmur of astonishment rose from the children.\n\nThe King's daughter had never been disobeyed in her life before, and for\na moment she was too astonished to speak.\n\n\"Who is he? What is his name?\" she demanded at last.\n\nThere was a pause, broken presently by the shrill voice of one of the\npages. \"Please, your Highness, it is only deaf Robert, the minstrel's\nson,\" he said.\n\n\"Deaf!\" repeated the Princess. \"What is that?\"\n\n\"It means that he cannot hear anything, little daughter,\" explained the\nQueen; \"so, you see, he would not do for a playfellow at all. Besides,\nhe is not even a Prince. Can you not choose one of these others\ninstead?\"\n\nThe Princess, however, could do nothing of the kind. \"All these are\nalike,\" she said again; \"but the minstrel's son has a wonderful look on\nhis face, and I will have no one else for a playfellow!\"\n\nSo all the children went sadly back to their homes, and wondered why\nthey were so much alike; and the whole court was made uncomfortable once\nmore by the sulkiness of Princess Prunella.\n\n\"Your Highness's best wax doll has not been out for two whole days,\"\nsuggested the head nurse.\n\nThe Princess snatched the doll from her hands and threw it on the floor.\n\n\"If you will not let me play with a boy who is deaf, how can you expect\nme to play with a _doll_?\" she asked; and although, no doubt, there was\nmuch in what she said, it was hardly the way in which to speak to the\nhead nurse. Indeed, there would have been a serious disturbance in the\nroyal nursery the very next minute, if the Princess's cream-coloured\npony had not suddenly trotted round from the stable of its own accord,\nand put it into her head to go for a ride.\n\nNow, the Princess's pony was of course a fairy pony; so when he ran away\nwith her in the forest, that day, it was not to be supposed that he\nwould run away with her for nothing. He took her, in fact, for a real\nfairy ride, all through a fairy forest, that began by being quite a baby\nforest and then grew and grew, the deeper she went into it, until it\nended in being quite a grown-up forest. And the pony never stopped\nrunning away until he reached a dear little grey house, that was set in\nthe brightest of flower gardens, right in the middle of the forest.\n\nThe Princess slipped off his back and pushed open the little gate and\nwalked into the flower garden. Any one else might have been surprised to\nfind deaf Robert sitting there, in the middle of the trim green lawn,\nbut after a fairy ride one is never surprised at anything; so the\nPrincess's heart just gave one big jump for joy, and she ran straight up\nto him and took his hand.\n\n\"Poor deaf boy! poor deaf boy!\" she said softly. Certainly she was not\nbehaving like a King's daughter, for she ought to have been extremely\nangry with him for disobeying her in the morning, instead of which she\nspoke as gently to him as any ordinary little girl might have done. But\nthen, as he could not hear what she said to him, what was the use of\nspeaking like a princess?\n\n\"Poor deaf boy!\" she repeated, bending over him; \"no wonder you look so\ndull and unhappy!\"\n\nIt was the first time in her life that she had forgotten she was a\nprincess, and she was quite surprised at the gentleness of her own\nvoice. She was still more surprised when the deaf boy rose to his feet\nand bowed very low and answered her.\n\n\"I was only unhappy, Princess, because I could not hear what you said to\nme this morning,\" he explained.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried the Princess. \"You _can_ hear me now!\"\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" said deaf Robert; \"I can hear you now, because you speak so\nkindly. It is only when people are angry and speak roughly that I cannot\nhear them. That is why they say I am deaf.\"\n\n\"Have you always been deaf?\" asked the Princess, wonderingly.\n\n\"Ever since the wymps came to my christening,\" answered the minstrel's\nson. \"For when they asked my father what gift he would choose for me, he\nchose that I should be deaf to every sound that was not beautiful.\"\n\n\"So that is why you have such a wonderful look on your face,\" said\nPrincess Prunella. \"I wish the wymps went to everybody's christening!\"\n\nDeaf Robert shook his head. \"If they had not come to mine,\" he remarked,\n\"I should have been able to hear what you said to me this morning.\"\n\n\"Never mind!\" said the Princess. \"Come back to the palace with me now; I\nwill never speak crossly to you again, and then you will always be able\nto hear what I say.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" answered Robert, shrinking back. \"I cannot come to the town;\nit is so silent there, it frightens me.\"\n\n\"Silent?\" echoed the Princess. \"Surely, it is the forest that is\nsilent!\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said the minstrel's son, smiling; \"the forest is full of\nsound. Can you not hear them all talking,--the bees and the flowers and\nthe great pine-trees?\"\n\nPrincess Prunella listened. \"No,\" she said, shaking her head, \"I can\nhear nothing.\" Then she took the deaf boy's hands and pulled him towards\nthe gate. \"Come back to the town with me,\" she said eagerly. \"It is true\nthat you cannot hear the other people's voices; but you will always be\nable to hear _me_, and that is ever so much more important!\"\n\nSo the minstrel's son went back to the palace with Princess Prunella;\nand when the King and Queen saw how happy their little daughter was at\nlast, they said nothing more about deaf Robert not being a prince, but\ngot over the difficulty by making him a Marquis on the spot and giving\nhim the appointment of Playfellow-in-chief to her Royal Highness. A\nmagnificent banquet was given to celebrate this important event, at\nwhich several speeches were made by the King and several tunes were\nplayed by the band; but as the speeches were exceedingly pompous and the\ntunes were exceedingly noisy, the new Marquis, for whom they were\nintended, heard neither one nor the other. However, he heard every word\nthat the little Princess whispered in his ear, and perhaps that was all\nthat he wished to hear.\n\nNever had life passed so peacefully at the palace as in the days that\nfollowed. The Princess was never heard to utter an angry word, and she\nwent about with a contented look on her face that cheered the hearts of\nall who knew her. It was indeed a happy day for the court when the\nminstrel's son came to play with the King's daughter, and every one\nrejoiced that the King and the Queen had been wise enough to let their\nlittle daughter have her own way. But all this while no one thought of\nthe minstrel's son.\n\nNow, anybody might suppose that a minstrel's son, who suddenly found\nhimself made into a Marquis and Playfellow-in-chief to a Princess, would\nbe the happiest boy in the world. And yet, although he grew fonder every\nday of his little playfellow, deaf Robert was the saddest person in the\nwhole court. He grew more and more silent as the days went on, until at\nlast even the Princess noticed that he was changed.\n\n\"The wonderful look has gone from your face,\" she said to him. \"Can it\nbe that you do not feel happy at court?\"\n\nThen the boy-Marquis told her the truth. \"I am unhappy because I cannot\nhear the sounds of the town,\" he said. \"Will not your father go and live\nin the forest for a change, so that we can play there together, instead\nof in this horrible, silent place?\"\n\n\"But I don't want to go and play in the forest,\" objected the Princess.\n\"There are no people in the forest; and I should forget I was a person\nmyself, if I had nothing to talk to but the flowers and the trees.\"\n\nFor the first time since they had played together, deaf Robert\nremembered that he was nearly two years older than the little Princess;\nand he smiled in a superior manner. \"That is only because you hear all\nthe wrong things,\" he said. \"If you could once hear the sounds of the\nforest, you would never want to come back to the town.\"\n\nThe Princess turned red with anger, and she opened her mouth to give the\nminstrel's son a thorough good scolding, which would certainly have\nsurprised him had he been able to hear it. But she remembered in time\nthat he would not be able to hear it, so she sighed impatiently and\nanswered him as softly as she could.\n\n\"You are quite mistaken,\" she said, putting her chin in the air. \"If you\nwere a real boy you would understand.\" And with that she turned and left\nhim. It was certainly annoying not to be able to lose her temper\nwhenever she felt inclined, but there was nothing to prevent her from\nremembering that she was a princess.\n\nThat afternoon, the Princess pricked her finger, and the minstrel's son\nfound out that what she had said was quite true, and he was not a real\nboy at all. For, of course, the Princess did what any other little girl\nof twelve years old would have done, and burst into tears; while the\nminstrel's son, who was quite unable to hear her sobs, only stared at\nher solemnly, and wondered why her pretty round face had suddenly\ntwisted itself into such a strange expression.\n\n\"What are you doing, Prunella?\" he asked her gravely.\n\n\"Doing!\" wept the Princess. \"Why, I am crying, of course! That is what\nyou would be doing if you had pricked your finger as badly as I have.\"\nShe held out her small white finger as she spoke, but the minstrel's son\nonly stared at her as solemnly as before.\n\n\"Crying? What is that?\" he asked. \"And why should you do anything so\nuseless? Surely, it would be better to fetch a doctor or a piece of\nsticking-plaster.\"\n\nPrincess Prunella came to the end of her patience. It had been bad\nenough to exist for six whole weeks without being allowed to lose her\ntemper once, but now that she found she could not even cry with any\npleasure, she felt it was more than any little girl of twelve years old\ncould be expected to bear.\n\n\"It isn't sticking-plaster that I want,\" she said miserably. \"When\npeople cry, they want to be comforted, of course.\"\n\n\"Do they?\" said deaf Robert, looking perplexed. \"But if I cannot hear\nyou cry, how am I to comfort you?\"\n\nThe Princess was far too cross to be reasonable, though she managed to\nremember that it was no use letting her crossness appear in her voice.\n\"That's just it!\" she sobbed. \"You ought to be able to hear me cry, and\nthen you would be a real boy!\"\n\nAnd the Princess pitied herself so much for being forced to play with\nsome one who was not real, that she buried her face in her hands and\nwept more than ever. She half hoped, even then, that deaf Robert would\ncome and kiss her and make friends again, as any nice boy would have\ndone at once; but deaf Robert did nothing of the kind, and when she at\nlast took her hands from her eyes, her playfellow was gone.\n\nTruly, the forest had never looked so beautiful as on that day when the\nminstrel's son hastened through it on his way to his old home. The\nflowers looked their best, and the birds sang their merriest, and the\ntrees bent their greenest boughs, to give him a welcome; but the boy\nwith the wonderful look on his face, who had lived among them for so\nlong, never paused so much as to glance at them, and they only had time\nto notice, as he passed them by, that the wonderful look was no longer\nthere. On he hurried until he came to the little grey house, set in its\ngarden of bright-coloured flowers; and he pushed open the gate and\nwalked in, just as his Princess had done six weeks ago.\n\nThe minstrel was at home, this time, and he was sitting on the doorstep\nin the sunshine. He had just composed a new song, and that always made\nhim extremely happy; but he sighed a little when he saw his son come in\nat the gate, for he, too, had no difficulty in seeing that the wonderful\nlook had gone from the boy's face.\n\n\"What is the matter, my son?\" he asked anxiously.\n\nDeaf Robert wasted no time in greeting him. \"Father,\" he cried, \"why did\nyou ask the wymps to my christening?\"\n\n\"That is easily answered,\" said the minstrel, soothingly. \"It was\nbecause I wished you to hear nothing but beautiful sounds all your\nlife.\"\n\n\"But what sounds do you call beautiful?\" demanded his son.\n\nThe minstrel smiled. \"Can you not hear my music?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said deaf Robert; \"but what else?\"\n\nIt had never struck the minstrel that there need be anything else, and\nhe hesitated a little. \"Well,\" he said at last, \"can you not hear the\nsounds of the forest?\"\n\nDeaf Robert looked up at the pine-trees overhead and down to the flowers\nat his feet. \"I used to be able to,\" he said sadly, \"but even the forest\nhas grown silent now.\" Then he clenched his fists and looked imploringly\nat his father. \"Must I live to the end of my days without hearing any of\nthe things that other boys hear?\" he cried.\n\n\"You are a little unreasonable, my son,\" said the minstrel. \"Are not the\nbeautiful sounds of life enough for you?\"\n\n\"Enough?\" said deaf Robert. \"I want much, much more than that, father.\nWhy, I want to hear the Princess cry!\"\n\n\"That is nonsense!\" exclaimed the minstrel. \"Tears make a most\nunpleasant sound, and you would be extremely disappointed if you were to\nhear the Princess cry.\"\n\nThe minstrel's son drew himself up proudly. \"You do not understand; you\nare not real either,\" he said. \"The tears of _my_ Princess make the\nsweetest sound in the world, and I am not going to rest until I learn\nhow to hear it.\" Then he turned and walked through the gate and out into\nthe forest once more.\n\nThe minstrel looked after him and sighed. \"It was the best gift I could\nthink of,\" he murmured; \"it was the one I would have chosen for myself.\nIt is true,\" he added thoughtfully, \"that I never wanted to play with a\nKing's daughter.\"\n\nThe minstrel's son wandered aimlessly through the forest,--the forest\nthat he had once liked so well because it was all his, and that he only\nliked now because he had found his little Princess in it; and there he\nmight have been wandering still, if he had not suddenly met a wymp. This\nwas not really surprising in that particular forest, for it was just the\nkind of forest in which any boy of fourteen might at any minute meet a\nwymp; but for all that, deaf Robert was just a little bit startled when\nthe wymp suddenly dropped in his path from the tree above and nodded at\nhim.\n\n\"Hullo!\" said the wymp. \"What is the matter with you?\"\n\n\"I am very unhappy, because I am not a real boy,\" explained deaf\nRobert.\n\n\"Dear me! How is that?\" asked the wymp, pretending to be surprised.\n\n\"Well, _you_ ought to know,\" answered deaf Robert. \"It is all because\nthe wymps came to my christening.\"\n\n\"Nothing of the sort!\" cried the wymp, indignantly. \"It is all because\nyour father insisted on knowing better than we did, and we let him have\nhis own way. If the wymps had not been at your christening, you would\nnot even _want_ to be a real boy. So you cannot hear the Princess cry,\neh? That's a good wympish joke, that is!\" And the wymp stood on his head\nand choked with laughter.\n\n\"It is all very well for you to laugh,\" complained the minstrel's son.\n\"You don't know how unpleasant it is to be a boy without being a real\nboy.\"\n\nThe wymp came down on his toes again and stopped laughing. \"Then why\ndon't you go and learn to be a real boy?\" he asked in surprise.\n\n\"How can I find out the way?\" asked deaf Robert.\n\n\"You ridiculous boy!\" exclaimed the wymp. \"Why, the first person you\nmeet will be able to tell you that!\"\n\nDeaf Robert had no time to thank him for his information, for the wymp\nbegan turning somersaults the moment he had finished speaking, and he\nwent on turning them until he turned into nothing at all, and there was\nno more wymp to be seen. Then the minstrel's son walked on through the\nforest; and for three days and three nights he met no one at all, but on\nthe morning of the fourth day he came to the very edge of the forest,\nand there he saw an old woman sitting by the side of a blackberry bush.\n\n\"Hurrah!\" cried deaf Robert, waving his cap. \"Do you know that you are\nthe first person I have met, and that you are going to tell me how to\nbecome a real boy?\"\n\n\"I will tell you at once,\" said the old woman, smiling, \"for you come\nstraight to the point and do not beat about the bush. This is what you\nmust do, then:--something brave and something kind and something foolish\nand something wise. If you are not a real boy after that, it will be\nyour own fault!\" Then she walked round the blackberry bush and\ndisappeared; and although deaf Robert forgot what she had just said\nabout him and beat about that bush in good earnest, he never saw any\nmore of her.\n\nThen the minstrel's son walked straight on in search of a brave deed to\ndo; and this did not take him long, for there are always plenty of\nbrave deeds waiting to be done by some one. So, long before the sun was\nabove his head that day, he came to a castle where a beautiful Princess\nwas being kept captive by a cruel old giant,--all because he was cruel,\nand for no other reason at all. And when deaf Robert saw the Princess\nweeping behind the bars of her prison window, he was reminded of his own\nlittle Princess whom he had left weeping on the nursery floor; and that\nmade him call on the giant instantly to come out and be killed. The\ngiant laughed a great laugh and came out into the courtyard, not to be\nkilled, but to kill the minstrel's son instead; but before he had time\nto do that, the minstrel's son had managed to kill _him_, and there was\nan end of the cruel old giant.\n\n\"That is the bravest deed I have ever seen done!\" cried the Princess,\nwhen he fetched her out of her dungeon.\n\n\"Brave deeds are easily done, then,\" said deaf Robert; but he was glad\nenough, all the same, to hear that he had done the first part of his\ntask. The next thing he did was to take the beautiful Princess back to\nher own country; and that seemed to him a great waste of time, for he\ncould not certainly do his kind deed so long as he had the Princess on\nhis hands. But when they reached her country and the Princess told her\nfather how deaf Robert had come out of his way to bring her home, the\nold King was pleased, and asked him what reward he would like for his\ntrouble. \"For,\" he said, \"you have done the kindest deed any one could\npossibly think of.\"\n\n\"No reward for me!\" laughed deaf Robert; \"for there is my kind deed done\nwithout my knowing it!\" And off he set once more on his travels.\n\nAfter that, the minstrel's son wandered about for a great many days; for\nneither a wise nor a foolish deed could he find to do. Sometimes, when\nhe thought he had been wise, the people told him he was cruel, and drove\nhim out of their country; and sometimes, when he was sure he had been\nfoolish, they only praised him for his kindness. He grew tired and\nfootsore, and his clothes became old and ragged, and he almost forgot\nthat he had once been a Marquis and Playfellow-in-chief to a princess.\nBut he never forgot how the little Princess Prunella had looked, as she\nsat on the nursery floor and wept with sobs that he was not able to\nhear. So two years passed away, and still he had not learned how to be a\nreal boy.\n\nOne day, as he walked along a country road, he came upon a girl driving\ncows.\n\n\"Why are you looking so sad?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Because I left my Princess crying in her nursery two years ago, and I\nhave been away from her ever since,\" answered the boy, simply.\n\nThe girl burst out laughing. \"Well,\" she exclaimed, \"that was a foolish\nthing to do!\"\n\n\"Foolish?\" shouted deaf Robert. \"Did you say _foolish_?\"\n\n\"To be sure I did,\" laughed the girl. \"Could anything be more foolish\nthan to keep away from some one whom you want to be with?\"\n\n\"Then I will go back to her this very instant,\" declared the minstrel's\nson.\n\n\"And that would be the wisest thing you could do,\" answered the girl;\nand she immediately disappeared, cows and all, which just shows that she\nmust have been a wymp all the while.\n\n\"Well,\" said deaf Robert, \"there are my wise and my foolish deeds done\ntogether, and now I am a real boy!\"\n\nThen off he set homewards as fast as he could go; and although it had\ntaken him two years to come away from home, it only took him two hours\nto get back again, so it is clear that the wymps must have had a hand\nin that, too. And just about tea-time he stood outside the nursery door\nin the palace of his own little Princess.\n\nIt is well to remember that the wymps had come to the christening of the\nminstrel's son; otherwise it might seem a little wonderful that the\nPrincess Prunella should have pricked her finger again, on the very day\nthat her Playfellow-in-chief came back to her. Anyhow, that is what had\nhappened; and as the minstrel's son stood outside the door and listened,\nhe heard the softest and the sweetest and the prettiest sound he had\never heard in his life.\n\n\"Hurrah!\" he cried. \"At last I can hear the Princess cry!\" And he burst\nopen the door and ran into the room, all in his rags and his tatters,\nand knelt down to comfort the King's daughter.\n\n\"Only look at my finger,\" wept Princess Prunella, as she showed him her\nlittle hand. Truly, it was impossible to tell which of her small white\nfingers the Princess had pricked, but as the minstrel's son kissed every\none of them in turn, it is clear that he must have healed the right one;\nand that, of course, was why the Princess stopped crying at once.\n\nThen she looked at her old playfellow and laughed for joy to see him\nthere again. \"The wonderful look has come back into your face,\" she\nsaid, \"but it is ever so much more wonderful than before!\"\n\n\"Dear little playfellow,\" whispered the minstrel's son, \"I can hear the\nforest sounds again, too; but you were right all the time, and the\nsounds of the town are much more charming than the sounds of the\nforest.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" declared the Princess. \"There you are quite mistaken, for the\nsounds of the forest are more beautiful by far.\"\n\nAnd it is a fact that they have been disputing the point ever since.\n\n\n\n\nThe Palace on the Floor\n\n\nPrince Picotee had just built a fairy palace on the nursery floor, and\nhe sat back on his heels and looked at it with pride. Surely, no one had\never built so fine a palace before in the space of thirteen minutes and\na half! Not only were there two lofty towers that soared proudly upwards\nuntil they were actually as tall as the Prince himself, but there was a\ngreat arched doorway as well, with a flight of steps leading down from\nit away under the nursery table; and there was even a drawbridge, made\nof a single big brick and suspended by a piece of string. All this,\nhowever, might be found in anybody's palace; what made the Prince's\npalace different from every one else's was just the way the windows were\nbuilt. They were not built in rows, like ordinary windows, so that any\none could guess how dull and square the rooms were inside; but they\nappeared here and there as if by accident, sometimes at a corner,\nsometimes on the top of another window, sometimes under the\nbattlements, wherever, in fact, the little builder-Prince had felt\ninclined to put a window; and the most wonderful thing of all was that,\nhowever much he tried to peep through them, he could not possibly see\nwhat the rooms were like beyond. So the palace he had built himself was\nfull of beautiful halls and rooms and passages that no one would ever be\nable to see.\n\n\"No doubt,\" exclaimed Prince Picotee, \"this is the most wonderful palace\nthat ever was built!\"\n\nJust then Dimples, the Prime Minister's little daughter, ran into the\nroom. \"How absurd!\" she cried. \"Why, it isn't a real palace at all!\"\n\n\"It is real enough for me,\" said Prince Picotee. \"When I am grown up and\na king, I shall have a palace exactly like this to live in.\"\n\nDimples came and sat on the floor by the Prince. \"_I_ shouldn't like to\nlive in a palace that would tumble down directly you pulled out the\nbottom brick,\" she observed, placing her fat little finger on the brick\nas she spoke.\n\nThe Prince seized her hand hastily. \"There will be no girls in my\npalace,\" he said with dignity; \"it is only girls who want to pull down\nother people's palaces.\"\n\nDimples put her head on one side and examined the palace afresh. \"How\nuntidy your steps are!\" she remarked. \"The top one is shorter than the\nothers, and there is a join in the middle of the second one.\"\n\nThe Prince felt a little hurt. \"It is not my fault if the bricks are not\nall the same length,\" he said. \"Besides, those things do not matter.\nOnly look at my beautiful windows!\"\n\nDimples looked, and burst out laughing. \"What funny windows!\" she\nexclaimed. \"Why, you can't see into the rooms! What is the use of having\na palace when you don't know what it is like inside?\"\n\n\"You don't understand,\" answered Prince Picotee. \"Anybody can see inside\nan ordinary palace; this is a particular palace, you see.\"\n\nDimples did not see at all; so she changed the conversation. \"What are\nall those soldiers doing on the table?\" she asked.\n\n\"They are not on the table,\" explained the Prince. \"They have been\nmarching since yesterday morning, and they are on the road to my fairy\npalace.\" He then began to station his soldiers on the battlements of the\ntwo lofty towers.\n\n\"I suppose you think your wooden soldiers are real, too!\" laughed the\nPrime Minister's daughter.\n\n\"Hush!\" whispered the Prince. \"If you speak so loud, they will hear you,\nand it would never do for them to know that you called them wooden.\n_Anything_ might happen to you if you made them really angry!\"\n\n\"You are only talking nonsense,\" said Dimples, which was what she always\nsaid when she did not understand what the Prince meant. At the same time\nshe could not help being struck by the look on the face of the soldier\nthat Prince Picotee had just picked up. It was the captain of the little\nregiment; and as the Prince placed him at the post of danger on the\nbottom brick of all, she felt sure that she saw a flush of anger on his\npainted wooden cheeks and a gleam of mischief in his round black eyes.\n\"He is only a toy soldier,\" said Dimples, tossing her head; but she did\nnot say it aloud, and it is certain that she felt a little\nuncomfortable, all the rest of that day, about the look on the captain's\nface.\n\nNow, Dimples had come to stay with the Prince for a few days, and it\nhappened that the room in which she slept was next to the royal nursery;\nand right in the middle of the night--which, as every one knows, is the\ntime for wymps and fairies to be about--she awoke suddenly with a most\nunpleasant start. There, by the side of her bed, stood one of the\nPrince's wooden soldiers, shouldering his wooden gun as though he had\nnever done anything else for the whole of his life,--which was certainly\nthe truth,--and holding himself just for all the world as though he were\nglued together. He was certainly a most military-looking soldier, and if\nDimples had not been a particularly brave little girl, she might have\nbeen decidedly frightened.\n\n\"What do you want?\" she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.\n\n\"Follow me. Prince's palace. Captain's orders,\" said the little soldier,\nin three jerks; and he turned round and marched stiffly towards the\ndoor. His tone was hard; but then, of course, his voice, like everything\nelse about him, was made of wood. Dimples made no fuss about obeying\nhim, for she was always ready for an adventure; so out of bed she jumped\nwithout any more ado, and followed him into the next room. It took them\nseveral minutes to get there, because the soldier walked so very slowly;\nbut this, again, was not surprising, for people with wooden legs cannot\nbe expected to walk as fast as ordinary folk.\n\nWhen they reached the nursery, Dimples gave a cry of surprise. It was\nevident that the Prince's palace had sprung upwards since the afternoon,\nfor the two towers were now far above her head, while as for the\ndrawbridge, by the time she had crossed it and mounted the magnificent\nflight of steps, she found herself quite out of breath. \"Perhaps it is a\nreal palace, after all,\" she said doubtfully.\n\n\"Don't mutter. Bad manners. Captain's prisoner,\" said the soldier in\nthree jerks, as before.\n\nDimples did not answer, for at that moment she stepped inside the\nPrince's palace and was too breathless with excitement to utter a word.\nIt was indeed no ordinary hall in which she found herself; it was built\nentirely of oak beams of different lengths, so that in one place the\nceiling was low and in another place it was high, in one corner there\nwere several doors, and in another there were several windows; here an\narch tottered perilously over an opening, and there a solitary pillar\nblocked up the whole of a doorway. It was truly a wonderful palace, as\nthe Prince had said, but it was a little surprising at first sight.\nDimples, however, had no time to think about it, for at that moment a\nstern voice was heard coming from below the floor of the hall.\n\n\"Bring the prisoner here!\" said the voice. Dimples looked through a hole\nin the floor,--which was not difficult, as the floor was full of\nholes,--and there, on the bottom brick of all, stood the toy captain.\n\n\"Come along. Bottom brick. Captain waiting,\" said her guide; and with\nsome little difficulty--for it is not easy to jump from beam to beam\nwhen one is accustomed to solid floors--she scrambled after him and\narrived in front of the terrible captain.\n\n\"Oho!\" said the captain, grasping his sword as tightly as he\ncould,--which was very tight, as it happened, because his fingers were\nglued to it,--\"who is the real person now, you or I?\"\n\nThe question was a puzzling one, but Dimples did her best to answer it\ntruthfully. \"Well,\" she said, \"I suppose you are real, though I didn't\nthink so before; and I suppose I am real, too; but it is rather\nconfusing, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Not at all confusing,\" said the captain, a little rudely it must be\nowned. \"It is quite clear that I am real, of course; but as for\nyou--why, you are not even painted!\"\n\n\"No,\" said Dimples, as politely as she could, \"I am not painted, and I\ndon't think I want to be painted, thank you. Why, I should never feel\nsafe for a moment if I had a face that anybody could wash off with a\nsponge!\"\n\nAt this the toy captain was so furious that he shook with anger from\nhead to foot.\n\n\"Do you know,\" he said, \"that I have only to pull out the brick on which\nI am standing, and the whole palace will tumble down on your head?\"\n\n\"Of course I know,\" laughed Dimples, who was growing less frightened\nevery minute; \"but if you do, it will tumble down on your head as well\nas mine.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" said the toy captain, \"but I am a real person and I am\nmade of wood, so it will make no difference to me.\"\n\nDimples was obliged to own that there was something in what the captain\nsaid; and as she disliked nothing so much as being beaten in an\nargument, she at once pretended not to be listening.\n\n\"Oh, dear, how hungry I am!\" she said, yawning.\n\n\"If you were real and not made up,\" said the toy captain, \"you would\nnever get hungry at all.\" However, he called out to a soldier, who was\nmounting guard on the top of a pillar just over his head, and ordered\nhim to bring the prisoner some food. In a few minutes, Dimples found\nherself in front of a curious meal, served on round cardboard dishes and\nconsisting of one red jelly, two raw mutton chops, a bunch of grapes,\nand a slice of salmon.\n\n\"But they won't come off the dishes, will they?\" asked Dimples, who had\nfed her dolls for years on the very things that were now placed before\nher.\n\n\"Of course not,\" said the toy captain. \"They would have been lost long\nago if they had not been stuck on. What more can you want? If you were a\nreal person, as you pretend to be, your appetite would be taken away by\nthe mere sight of dishes like those!\"\n\nThis, in fact, was what had already happened to Dimples, for there was\nnothing very enticing about a jelly from which she remembered sucking\nthe paint only a week ago; while as for the other things, even her\nyoungest and favourite doll was beginning to grow tired of their\nmonotony. So she made no objection when the captain ordered the dishes\nto be removed.\n\n\"Now you have satisfied your hunger,\" continued the captain, \"I will\norder you to be taken upstairs to the dungeon.\"\n\n\"Upstairs!\" exclaimed Dimples. \"What a funny place for a dungeon!\"\n\n\"Funny? Not in the least!\" said the captain, severely. \"In a palace of\nthis kind you must take the rooms as you find them. You will find the\ndungeon squeezed between the drawing-room and the kitchen, at the very\ntop of the left-hand tower. There you will have to stop until the King\ncomes.\"\n\n\"Who is the King?\" asked Dimples, curiously.\n\nBefore the toy captain had time to answer, the band of the regiment\nstruck up an inspiriting march. To be sure, there were only two wooden\ndrummer boys and two wooden trumpeters, of whom one had lost his trumpet\nand was therefore obliged to blow continually through his stiffened\nfingers; but for all that they made quite a cheerful noise, and in the\nmiddle of it the King mounted the steps and entered the palace.\n\n\"Hurrah! The King! It is the King!\" shouted the whole regiment in twenty\nwooden voices.\n\n\"The King!\" repeated Dimples. \"Why, it is the Prince!\"\n\n\"Don't talk nonsense,\" said the captain, gruffly. \"Do you suppose we\nwould allow ourselves to be commanded by a mere Prince? This is a real\nKing, I can tell you, though he isn't made of wood, more's the pity!\"\n\nAnd when Dimples saw the dignified way in which the little King walked\ninto the palace, she could not help agreeing that he was a very real\nKing. Indeed, she found it difficult to believe that he was nothing but\nher playfellow, the Prince Picotee, for never before had she seen him\nlook so happy and so triumphant. There was no doubt that the little King\nhad found his kingdom; and Dimples, remembering that she was really his\nprisoner, began to wish that she had not teased him so much about his\ntoy palace and his toy soldiers. But the King did not even see her; he\nwalked straight into the great hall and then stood still and drew a long\nbreath of satisfaction.\n\n\"It is the most wonderful palace that ever was built,\" he murmured to\nhimself; \"it is much, much more wonderful than I thought.\"\n\nThen his eyes fell upon Dimples, who was trying to hide behind the stiff\nfigure of the toy captain, on the bottom brick of all.\n\n\"What is that girl doing in my palace?\" asked the King, frowning.\n\n\"Please your Majesty, it is your Majesty's prisoner,\" answered the\ncaptain,--\"she is waiting for your Majesty to decide on her punishment.\"\n\n\"What has the prisoner done?\" asked the King in as dignified a manner as\nhe could assume, considering that he stood on a tottering brick at the\nedge of the abyss in which the captain and his prisoner awaited him.\n\n\"Please your Majesty, she was heard to say that your Majesty's army was\nnot a real army, and that I, your Majesty,--_I_ was nothing but a toy\nsoldier!\" said the captain; and he again shook with anger from head to\nfoot, which, after all, was the only way he could shake, because he was\nmade all in one piece.\n\n\"Send the prisoner here,\" commanded the King. \"It is not safe to keep a\nprisoner on the bottom brick--especially when she is a girl.\"\n\nSo Dimples, wishing from the bottom of her heart that the little\nplayfellow she had teased had not been suddenly changed into a king,\nclambered up again into the hall.\n\n\"Prince Picotee,\" she said in an anxious undertone, as soon as she was\nnear him, \"I do think it is a real palace now, I do really!\"\n\n\"Why, it's only Dimples!\" exclaimed the King, and he nearly tumbled off\nthe edge of the floor in his surprise. Then he remembered that he was a\nking, and tried to become dignified again, which, of course, was\nexceedingly difficult now that the Prime Minister's daughter was there\nto see. As for Dimples, she had not played with the Prince all her life\nfor nothing, and she quite ceased to be frightened of him as soon as she\ncame face to face with him.\n\n\"If you let that nasty captain punish me, I'll tell them all you are\nonly a little boy and not a king at all,\" she whispered; and her round\nlittle face twinkled with merriment.\n\nThe King wavered. \"I always said I would have no girls in my palace,\" he\nmurmured sorrowfully.\n\n\"Will you promise?\" persisted Dimples.\n\nThe King avoided her eyes. It was very hard not to give in and smile\ntoo, when Dimples looked like that. After all, he reflected, if Dimples\nwas a girl and did not understand things properly, she made an excellent\nplayfellow; and the most wonderful palace in the world might grow a\nlittle dull if there were only wooden soldiers to share it with. So the\nKing made up his mind, and took the prisoner by one hand and waved his\nother in a royal manner to the captain.\n\n\"I will talk it over with the prisoner,\" he announced, \"so do not let us\nbe disturbed. And you need not take any more prisoners without\nconsulting me,\" he added hastily, for he really feared that his nurse\nmight be the next prisoner, and then, where would be the fun of being a\nking at all?\n\n\"Now, let us go and explore your palace,\" said Dimples, impatiently; and\nthe captain was left on the bottom brick to get over his disappointment.\n\nIt would be impossible to describe how the two children wandered over\nthe fairy palace that the Prince had built; how they climbed from one\nfloor to another; how they dropped from arch to pillar; how they wound\ntheir way in and out of delightful passages, finding fresh secret rooms\nas they went; how from one window they looked down on the vast nursery\ntableland and from another caught a glimpse of the towering\nrocking-horse; how they quite forgot they were King and prisoner, and\nstood at last, hand in hand, on the battlements of the highest tower and\ntold each other what fun it was to play in a real fairy palace.\n\nThe toy captain, however, had not forgotten anything; and when he saw\nthem talking in this familiar manner on the battlements--which he could\neasily do from his position on the bottom brick, so cleverly was this\nwonderful palace built--he felt it was high time to interfere.\n\n\"Has your Majesty decided how to punish the prisoner?\" asked the toy\ncaptain, holding himself in his very stiffest manner and raising his\nvoice sufficiently to be heard on the battlements.\n\nThe King looked at the prisoner, and the prisoner laughed at the King.\n\n\"Well,\" said Dimples, demurely, \"_has_ your Majesty made up his mind?\"\n\n\"Oh, _don't_!\" whispered his Majesty, crossly. \"You know I can't behave\nlike a king if you laugh at me!\" Then he folded his arms and looked down\nat the captain. \"I have decided not to punish the prisoner at all,\" he\nsaid solemnly.\n\n\"What!\" cried the captain, furiously. \"You are not going to punish the\nprisoner at all?\"\n\n\"No,\" said his Majesty, growing bolder; \"and what is more, I am going to\nhave you beheaded for interfering in the King's private affairs!\"\n\nEven Dimples felt a little nervous when she saw the look that crept over\nthe captain's face.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" she whispered to the Prince, \"that is how he looked\nyesterday when I said he wasn't real. Would it not be wiser to make\nfriends with him?\"\n\nBut her little playfellow was looking as he had looked when he first\nentered his palace. \"A king,\" he said grandly, \"makes neither friends\nnor enemies. The captain is only my toy, and I can do as I will with\nhim.\"\n\nThe captain's fury knew no bounds when he overheard this. \"That is what\ncomes of having a king who is not made of wood,\" he said. \"But you have\nforgotten one thing, your Majesty!\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" asked the King, smiling.\n\n\"The bottom brick,\" said the toy captain, as he stooped and pulled it\nout.\n\nTruly, there had never been such a shatter and a clatter and a tumble as\nwhen the toy captain pulled out the bottom brick of the Prince's palace!\nAnd in the midst of it all the children felt themselves falling and\nfalling and falling. And louder than it all sounded the mocking laughter\nof the toy captain.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Some people would say it was only a dream,\" observed Prince Picotee,\nthe next morning, as they stood over the ruins on the nursery floor.\n\n\"It can't have been a dream,\" answered Dimples, who was always\npractical, \"because here is the head of the toy captain.\"\n\n\"And here,\" added the Prince, bending down, \"is his body. So he _was_\nbeheaded after all!\"\n\n\"I wish,\" sighed Dimples, \"that it could all come over again.\"\n\n\"It will some day,\" the Prince assured her, \"when I am King and have\nbuilt another palace like this one.\"\n\n\"But I shall not be there,\" pouted Dimples, \"because you won't have any\ngirls in your palace.\"\n\nPrince Picotee kicked the headless captain about the floor thoughtfully.\n\"Well, I'm not quite sure,\" he said, growing a little red. \"Perhaps I'll\nhave one girl.\"\n\n\"Will you?\" laughed Dimples. \"But what if she pulls down your wonderful\npalace?\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Prince Picotee, gravely, \"I shall not tell her about the\nbottom brick!\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Lady Daffodilia\n\n\nNo one in the whole kingdom was so idle, or so careless, or so\nthoughtless as the Lady Daffodilia. The only thing she had done ever\nsince she was born was to grow and grow and grow, so that, although she\nwas only twelve years old, she was quite as tall as the Countess, her\nmother. In fact, she was tall enough to be conceited about it, which, of\ncourse, was extremely foolish of her, for she had certainly had nothing\nto do with it herself.\n\n\"You are a whole year older than I am, but I am a head taller than you,\"\nwas what she said to Prince Brilliant, when he came to play with her,\none day. She was perched on the garden wall at the time, so she was able\nto look down on the little Prince even more than usual.\n\n\"Hush!\" said the Countess, who was drinking tea on the lawn. \"That is\nnot the way to speak to a Prince.\"\n\nPrince Brilliant stuck his chin into the air and tried to make the most\nof his height.\n\n\"I don't care a bit,\" he said; \"I wouldn't have silly long legs like\nyours for anything. It's much better to know things; and only think of\nall the things I know that you never heard of! You couldn't even say the\nexports and imports of Fairyland without looking in the book first; now,\ncould you?\"\n\n\"Hush!\" said his Queen-mother, who was also drinking tea on the lawn.\n\"That is not the way to speak to a little lady.\"\n\nThe Lady Daffodilia stooped a little, and smoothed out the creases in\nher black silk stockings, just to show that she had not forgotten how\nmuch longer her legs were than the Prince's. The Prince pretended not to\nsee.\n\n\"What you say is very true,\" then said Daffodilia, who was always fair,\neven when she was most aggravating; \"but I am better off than you, all\nthe same. I can go and look in the book if I want to know all those\ntiresome stuffy things you think such a lot about; but all the books in\nthe world won't make you so tall as I am!\"\n\nThe Prince was much annoyed, for there was no doubt that the Lady\nDaffodilia had the best of the argument. He aimed a most unprincely kick\nat a harmless geranium plant, that, like the Lady Daffodilia, had never\ndone anything in its life but grow; and he turned very red in the face.\n\n\"You're only a girl,\" he said; \"and girls think too much of themselves.\nThat's what my Professor says!\"\n\n\"If _you_ were a girl,\" laughed the Lady Daffodilia, \"it would not\nmatter about your being such a little bit of a thing! Is it not very\nunpleasant to be so short, when you are a boy?\"\n\nThe Prince turned and walked quickly towards the garden gate. It was\ntrue that he was a prince, and could not therefore be rude to the Lady\nDaffodilia; but he was a boy, too, and if he had stopped another minute\nhe was quite certain he would have lifted her down from the wall and\ngiven her a good shaking.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" she cried after him, and laughed more than ever\nwhen she saw how cross she had made him.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" echoed the Queen and the Countess.\n\nPrince Brilliant turned when he reached the gate, and faced them all\nwith a resolute look on his small, round face.\n\n\"I am going to find out the way to grow tall,\" he said. \"I shall not\ncome back until I am as tall as the Lady Daffodilia.\"\n\nThen he went through the gate and slammed it behind him, and marched\naway down the hot, dusty road. The Queen and the Countess only smiled,\nfor they did not suppose he had gone for good; but the Lady Daffodilia\nslipped down from the wall and on to the grass lawn, and began to weep.\n\n\"I have sent away my favourite Prince,\" she sobbed, \"and I shall never\nhave him to play with again.\"\n\n\"Do not cry, little daughter,\" said the Countess, soothingly; \"your\nPrince will come back soon.\"\n\n\"You do not know him so well as I do,\" said Daffodilia. \"He always means\nwhat he says; and since it is quite certain that nothing can ever make\nhim as tall as I am, it is quite certain that he will never come back\nany more.\"\n\nIt seemed as though her words were likely to come true, for the Prince\nhad not returned by bedtime; and, although the King's messengers rode\nout that very night and hunted the whole country up and down for days\nand weeks and years, not a trace was ever found of the little Prince who\nhad gone to learn the way to grow tall. So the kingdom was left without\nan heir to the throne, and the Lady Daffodilia was left without a\nplayfellow. It was not her way, however, to sit down and cry about it,\nbesides which she had found something really important to do at last.\n\n\"If the Prince has gone away to grow as tall as I am,\" she said, \"_I_\nwill stay at home and grow as clever as he is!\"\n\nSo she shut herself up in the Count's library with a pile of dusty\nbooks, and tried her very best to learn the exports and imports of\nFairyland. But as fast as she learned one she forgot the other; and she\nended by completely jumbling them up, which was really a serious matter,\nfor it is quite evident that the things we give to Fairyland are not at\nall the same things as Fairyland gives to us. And then, long before the\nLady Daffodilia had grown as clever as the Prince, the people came and\nclapped her into prison, \"for,\" they said, \"it is your fault that the\nheir to the throne is lost.\" It is true that they did not put her into a\nvery unpleasant prison, for it was a nice, comfortable old castle, in\nthe middle of a green plain; but there was no one to play with and no\none to tease, so it was most decidedly a prison. Added to this, the Lady\nDaffodilia seemed to have stopped growing at last, for she never grew\nanother inch after the Prince went away; and as this robbed her of her\nonly occupation, she began for the first time in her life to long for\nsomething to do. And she grew so tired of looking at the same green\nplain day after day, that she determined to make it into a garden for a\nchange; and the flowers and the shrubs were so proud of being planted by\nsuch dainty, white hands that they tried their very hardest to grow up\nnicely and be a credit to her; and the result was that the little lady\nin the castle soon became known as the most wonderful gardener in the\nkingdom.\n\nNow, when Prince Brilliant ran away from the Lady Daffodilia he found\nthe road so hot and so dusty that he was obliged to keep near the hedge\nat the side; and he had not run very far before he pushed his head\nthrough a very elegant spider's web. The spider was exceedingly cross,\nand grumbled; but the daddy-longlegs that tumbled out of her web was\nvery much pleased with himself.\n\n\"Well, my little friend,\" he said to the Prince, \"where are you running\nso fast, this fine morning?\"\n\nNow, one of the things the Prince had learned from his Professor was the\nway to speak to a daddy-longlegs, so before another five minutes had\npassed he had told him the whole of his trouble. \"Do _you_ know the way\nto make your legs grow long?\" asked the Prince at the end of his story.\n\n\"Well,\" said the daddy-longlegs, \"that is certainly one of the things I\nam generally supposed to know; but if I show you the way, do you think\nyou will have patience to do everything I tell you? It may take a very\nlong time.\"\n\n\"I can wait years and years and years and years,\" said the Prince, in\nhis determined way; and the daddy-longlegs had the sense to see that he\nmeant what he said.\n\n\"Right you are,\" he said. \"Then jump straight into that hedge; and the\nmore spiders' webs you break on the way, the better--nasty, choky,\nstuffy things!\"\n\n\"What shall I do when I get there?\" asked the Prince.\n\n\"Oh, you haven't got to do anything,\" said the daddy-longlegs, with a\nchuckle. \"Just wait there until I come to you.\"\n\n\"All right; but you won't be long, will you?\" said the Prince; and he\ntucked his crown under his arm and shut his eyes tight and jumped\nstraight into the thorny, prickly hedge.\n\nWhen he opened his eyes, he found himself in a strange new country, that\nwas all made of rose-coloured dreams, and filled with rose-coloured air,\nand lighted with rose-coloured sunbeams. There were no people or trees\nor mountains or rivers to be seen; but before the little Prince had time\nto notice this, his mind was filled with rose-coloured thoughts, and so\nhe forgot the Lady Daffodilia and his own crossness and everything that\nhad made him unhappy when he was in the real world.\n\n\"Hullo! Where am I?\" he cried.\n\n\"You are in the world of dreams, to be sure,\" said a voice in his ear.\n\"Where else should you be at your time of life?\"\n\n\"But who lives here?\" asked Prince Brilliant.\n\nA great many voices answered him. \"_We_ live here, of course,\" they\nsaid. \"We are really nice dreams, we are; and when children are the\nright sort, like yourself, they come here to stay with us until they are\ngrown up.\"\n\n\"May I play with you, then?\" asked the Prince. In the real world he had\nbeen too fond of books to play much, but here he felt as though he must\ndo nothing but play all day long.\n\n\"Of course you may,\" answered the dream voices; \"that is what you are\nhere for.\"\n\nPrince Brilliant was soon the happiest boy possible. Some people might\nthink it dull to have playfellows who could not be seen, but the Prince\nthought nothing could be more delightful than to live in the midst of\ndreams for the rest of his life. It is true that he was fast forgetting\neverything that his Professor had taught him; but this was hardly\nsurprising, for there is no room in a very small head for serious\nthoughts as well as rose-coloured ones.\n\nIt is doubtful whether the Prince would ever have wanted to go back to\nthe real world again, if he had not met the daddy-longlegs one day, as\nhe was strolling along with his favourite dream.\n\n\"Hullo!\" said the daddy-longlegs, chuckling. \"I see it is time for you\nto go back into the real world.\"\n\n\"What, already?\" exclaimed the Prince. \"Why, you said I should have to\nwait years and years and years and----\"\n\n\"You have been here exactly seven years,\" interrupted the\ndaddy-longlegs; \"and it is time for you to meet the waking-up dream.\"\n\nThe Prince suddenly began to remember things. \"When shall I be as tall\nas the Lady Daffodilia?\" he cried. But the daddy-longlegs had no time to\ndo anything but chuckle before the waking-up dream came and seized hold\nof the Prince, and he found himself falling, falling, falling--down,\ndown, down--until he dropped with a thud on a soft grass lawn, and\nfound himself in the middle of the most beautiful garden in the world. A\nlittle way off stood an old grey castle; and as he lay looking at it the\ngate swung open, and out stepped a dainty, winsome little lady.\n\nThe Prince sprang to his feet with a shout and held out his arms; and\nthe Lady Daffodilia ran straight into them without stopping so much as\nto think.\n\n\"How _did_ you learn to grow so tall?\" she asked, looking up at him.\n\n\"Well,\" said the Prince, truthfully, \"I just went into the world of\ndreams and waited till I was grown up. You see, I was a boy and not a\ngirl, all the time; so I was not in such a hurry as you to get my\ngrowing done early.\"\n\n\"I tried to grow as clever as you,\" sighed Daffodilia, \"but nothing\nwould stop in my head. I couldn't even say the exports and imports of\nFairyland without looking in the book first!\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" laughed the Prince; \"I don't believe there are any\nimports, for I am sure _we_ have nothing good enough to send there. And\nas for the exports, there is only one thing that Fairyland has sent into\nthis country that is worth remembering.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" she asked anxiously.\n\n\"It is something that is not very tall and not very serious and not very\nwise,\" answered the Prince; \"but it is sweet and merry and charming, and\nit is called the Lady Daffodilia!\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Kite That Went to the Moon\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nJerry had made the biggest kite in the village; and Chubby, the\nwoodcutter's daughter, had painted a big round moon on it and several\nstars as well. That alone was enough to show that it was by no means an\nordinary kite; so it was no wonder that Jerry felt very proud of himself\nwhen he ran on to the village green to fly it.\n\n\"Stand back, all of you!\" he said, as the girls and boys came crowding\nround him. \"Now, you shall see my kite fly to the moon!\"\n\nNo doubt, Jerry was inclined to make quite enough fuss about his kite;\nbut it is not every day that one has a chance of flying the biggest kite\nin the village, especially when one is only seven years old. He felt\nvery sad, however, when he found that his kite had no intention of\nflying to the moon. Every time he threw it into the air, back it fell\nagain on the grass; and although he tried again and again, and used\nyards and yards of the very best string that twopence-halfpenny could\nbuy, any one could see that something was decidedly wrong with the\nbiggest kite in the village.\n\nJerry turned red, and blinked his eyes, and reminded himself desperately\nthat he was seven years old. It was certainly hard to have spent six\nhalf-holidays in making a kite that would not fly in the end.\n\n\"Stupid thing!\" he muttered crossly. \"If I had the chance, just wouldn't\nI fly to the moon! Kites don't know when they are well off!\"\n\nBut when all the boys and girls burst out laughing, and pointed their\nfingers at him and began to tease, it was impossible to keep back his\ntears any longer. After all, one cannot go on remembering for ever that\none is seven years old. The children, however, only laughed the more,\nwhen the little maker of the kite suddenly flung himself down on the\nground and began to cry.\n\n\"What is the use of a kite that won't fly?\" they jeered. \"Take it home,\nJerry, and make it the same size as other people's kites! And mind you\nlet us know what the moon is like, when your kite gets there!\"\n\nJerry started to his feet again and shook his fist at them. \"Some day,\"\nhe shouted, \"I shall be able to laugh at you instead.\"\n\n\"When will that be, Jerry?\" cried all the boys and girls.\n\n\"When my kite has flown to the moon,\" answered Jerry, in a determined\ntone; and he picked up his kite there and then, and marched off to the\nschool to find Chubby, the woodcutter's daughter.\n\n\"Hullo, Chubby!\" he said, popping his head in at the schoolroom window.\n\"Haven't you done that sum yet?\"\n\nChubby looked up with a doleful face. After painting a moon and several\nstars on the biggest kite in the village, it was not pleasant to be kept\nin school just because seven would not go into sixty-three.\n\n\"I shall never finish it, Jerry, never!\" she said with a sigh.\n\n\"Chubby,\" said Jerry, solemnly, \"you've been crying.\"\n\nChubby rubbed her eyes hastily with her two fists. \"I don't think so,\"\nshe replied in a muffled tone; \"it was just three tears that trickled\ndown my nose and made a smudge on the slate; but that isn't crying. You\nknow it isn't, Jerry!\"\n\nJerry rubbed his own eyes a little guiltily. \"My kite wouldn't fly,\" he\nremarked, and tried to look as though he did not care a bit.\n\n\"What!\" cried Chubby. \"Wouldn't your kite fly? Then I never need have\ncried at all.\"\n\nJerry clambered on the window ledge and sat there with his legs swinging\nto and fro. He wished Chubby would not talk so much about crying. \"All\nthe string got mixed up,\" he explained with dignity; \"I expect that was\nit.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" said Chubby, decidedly; \"it was because the tail was too\nshort. I told you so, all the time.\"\n\nNo doubt there was something in what she said, but reasons are not much\ngood when you are seven years old and your kite won't fly, and Jerry was\nnot in a mood to be trifled with.\n\n\"If you know so much about it,\" he retorted, \"you'd better come and fly\nit yourself.\"\n\n\"I only wish I could,\" sighed poor little Chubby. \"If you'll tell me how\nmany times seven goes into--\"\n\n\"Oh, don't,\" interrupted Jerry, crossly. \"How can I do sums when my kite\nwon't fly?\"\n\nThen he flung himself down from the window ledge, and started off to\nfind some one who would tell him why his kite would not fly. Half-way\ndown the village street, he met a fine black raven.\n\n\"Good day to you,\" said Jerry, who knew that ravens could explain most\nthings if they chose. \"Can you tell me why my kite won't fly?\"\n\n\"Caw, caw!\" croaked the raven. \"Nine times, Jerry, nine times! Caw,\ncaw!\"\n\n\"I wonder what he means,\" thought Jerry, and trudged on a little\nfarther. Presently he met a sheep. Now, sheep do not know much as a\nrule, but they are always extremely anxious to tell what they do know.\nSo Jerry asked her at once why his kite would not fly.\n\n\"Baa, baa!\" said the sheep. \"Nine times, Jerry, nine times! Baa, baa!\"\n\n\"Everybody is going mad this afternoon,\" thought Jerry; and he went on a\nlittle farther. Just at the end of the village, a cockchafer came\nbuzzing round his head.\n\n\"Buz-z-z!\" hummed the cockchafer. \"Nine times, Jerry, nine times!\nBuz-z-z!\"\n\n\"Oh, go away, do!\" cried Jerry, impatiently. \"What do you all mean by\nnine times?\"\n\nThe cockchafer did not go away an inch, but buzzed closer to Jerry's\nhead than before. \"Buz-z-z,\" he hummed; \"nine times, Jerry, nine times,\nnine times, nine times, nine times--\"\n\nAll at once, the cockchafer's meaning entered Jerry's head, which was\nhardly to be wondered at, considering how close his head was at that\nmoment to the cockchafer.\n\n\"Of course it's nine times!\" he cried. \"Why didn't I think of that\nbefore?\" Then he turned round and dragged his kite all the way back to\nthe school, where Chubby still sat sighing over her sum.\n\n\"It goes nine times exactly, Chubby,\" he told her through the window;\n\"so now you can come and help me to carry this great big kite.\"\n\n\"Where are we going, Jerry?\" asked Chubby, when she had finished her sum\nand joined him.\n\n\"We are going out into the world, to discover the reason why my kite\nwon't fly,\" answered Jerry; and between them they picked up the biggest\nkite in the village and carried it out into the world.\n\n\"How are we going to discover why your kite won't fly?\" asked Chubby,\nwhen they had walked a good way. She had had no tea, to tell the truth,\nand was beginning to feel remarkably hungry.\n\n\"We will ask everybody we meet,\" said Jerry, who had had his tea and was\ntherefore not at all hungry. \"There is sure to be some one in the world\nwho can tell us, and we will not rest until we find him.\"\n\n\"We haven't met anybody yet,\" remarked Chubby, rather dolefully. \"How\nlong do you think we shall have to go on walking before we find the\nright person?\"\n\n\"Perhaps for years and years,\" answered Jerry, cheerfully. \"But if we\nare quick, we may meet him sooner than that.\"\n\nHe quickened his steps as he spoke, and Chubby had to run a little to\nkeep up with him. It was beginning to grow dark now, and the country\nseemed more and more desolate.\n\n\"The world is not so full of people as I expected to find it,\" said\nJerry, in a disappointed tone. \"I do hope we shall soon meet some one\nwho will know why my kite won't fly.\"\n\nJust then, he thought he heard something from behind that sounded like a\nsob. Sure enough, there was Chubby, wiping her eyes with the corner of\nher pinafore.\n\n\"I'm so hungry,\" she sobbed. \"I want my tea. Can't we go home, Jerry,\nand put off seeing the world until to-morrow?\"\n\nJerry looked at her and sighed. If it had been any one but Chubby, he\nwould most certainly have grumbled at her. As it was, he only propped\nup the kite against the hedge and made her sit down beside it.\n\n\"I am afraid I don't know the way home,\" he said; \"but if you will wait\nhere, I will go and get you something to eat.\"\n\nHe was not at all sure where he was going to find it, but he hastened\nalong the road as fast as he could and hoped he would soon come to a\nhouse. Long before he came to a house, however, he came to a man, a\nlittle old man, who was carrying a large sack on his shoulder. Directly\nhe saw Jerry, he swung the sack on to the ground and began untying the\nmouth of it.\n\n\"Well, my little fellow,\" he said in a friendly tone, \"what do you want\nout of my bag?\"\n\n\"That depends on what you have got in your bag,\" answered Jerry,\npromptly.\n\n\"I have everything in the world in my bag,\" replied the little old man,\n\"for everything is there that everybody wants. I have laughter and tears\nand happiness and sadness; I can give you riches or poverty, sense or\nnonsense; here is a way to discover the things that you don't know, and\na way to forget the things that you do know. Will you have a toy that\nchanges whenever you wish, or a book that tells you stories whenever you\nlisten to it, or a pair of shoes in which you can dance from boyhood\ninto youth? Choose whatever you like and it shall be yours; but\nremember, I can only give you one thing out of my bag, so think well\nbefore you make up your mind.\"\n\nJerry did not stop to think at all. \"Have you something to eat in your\nbag, something that will please a hungry little girl who has had no\ntea?\" he asked.\n\nThe little old man smiled and pulled out a small cake about the size of\nJerry's fist. It did not look as though it would satisfy any one who was\nas hungry as Chubby; but as the old man disappeared, sack and all, the\nmoment he had given Jerry the cake, it was not much good complaining\nabout it. So back trotted Jerry to the place where he had left Chubby;\nand greatly to his relief her face beamed with joy directly she had\neaten one mouthful.\n\n\"What a beautiful cake!\" she cried; \"it tastes like strawberry jam and\ntoffee and ices, and all the things I like best. And see! as fast as I\neat it, it comes again, so that I shall never be able to finish it. Take\nsome, Jerry.\"\n\n\"Why,\" said Jerry, as soon as he had taken a bite, \"it tastes like\ncurrant buns and ginger-beer and all the things _I_ like best. It is\ncertain that we shall never starve as long as we have a fairy cake like\nthis.\" Then he told her how he had come by it.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" remarked Chubby, \"the little old man could have told you why\nyour kite wouldn't fly.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he could,\" said Jerry, carelessly, \"but I didn't think to ask\nhim. We'll come along and ask the next person instead.\"\n\nWhen, however, they looked round for the kite, it was nowhere to be\nseen. The moon came out obligingly from behind a cloud and helped them\nas much as it could; but although they searched for a long time, not a\ntrace could they find of the biggest kite in the village.\n\n\"Oh dear, oh dear!\" sighed Chubby. \"Perhaps I went to sleep while you\nwere away, and somebody came along and took it. But I did think I\nstopped awake, Jerry; I did indeed!\"\n\n\"And so you did, to be sure!\" cried a voice from the hedge; \"but you\nwould have to be very wide awake to keep _that_ kite from giving you the\nslip, as soon as the moon came up!\"\n\nOf course, no one but a wymp would have appeared like that, just in time\nto say the right thing; so the children were not at all surprised when a\nparticularly wympish wymp came tumbling out of the hedge and perched\nhimself on a thistle and wimpled at them.\n\n\"Do you mean to say you know where the kite has gone?\" asked both the\nchildren, breathlessly.\n\n\"Look up there and see,\" answered the wymp, pointing to the sky.\n\nThe sky was covered with stars, hundreds and thousands of them, all\ntwinkling round the moon just as Chubby had painted them on the kite.\nOnly, she could not help thinking that her stars had more shape and were\ndecidedly more like stars than the real stars were; but this, she\nsupposed, might be because the real stars were such a long way off. One\nof them was different from all the others; it had a long bright tail\nthat glittered like a cracker at Christmas time, and it was scurrying\nacross the sky at such a pace that the rest of the stars had to get out\nof its way as best they could. Most of the people who looked out of\ntheir windows that night thought they saw a comet; but Jerry and Chubby\nknew better.\n\n\"Oh,\" they cried, clapping their hands with excitement. \"There is our\nkite, and it _is_ flying to the moon after all!\"\n\n\"There's no doubt about that,\" said the wymp, who was still wimpling at\nthem from the top of the thistle.\n\n\"But why did it not fly to the moon this afternoon, when all the other\nboys were looking on?\" asked Jerry, regretfully.\n\n\"Because there wasn't a moon to fly to, of course!\" answered the wymp.\n\"You shouldn't expect too much, even from the biggest kite in the\nvillage. Directly there _was_ a moon, you see, away it flew.\"\n\n\"Then, if I had painted the sun on it, instead of the moon, it would\nhave flown away this afternoon!\" exclaimed Chubby.\n\n\"Exactly so,\" said the wymp. \"Now, what ever induced you to paint a\nthing like the moon on anybody's kite, eh?\"\n\n\"Well, you see, the moon is so nice and easy,\" explained Chubby. \"All\nyou have to do is to draw a circle round the biggest soup plate you can\nfind; and then you take away the soup plate, and you paint in the eyes\nand the nose and the mouth, and there you are! You can't do much more\nthan that with three paints and a brush that's got hardly any hairs, can\nyou?\"\n\n\"Yes, you can,\" retorted the wymp, \"you can paint the sun, and that's\never so much better than painting the moon--nasty, silly, chilly thing!\"\n\n\"Oh, but you can't paint the sun when you've only got three paints,\"\nobjected Chubby. \"It takes ever so many more paints than that to make it\nshine properly; and even then, it doesn't always.\"\n\n\"Shine!\" repeated the wymp. \"Who said anything about shining? When I say\nthe sun, I mean the other side of the sun, of course. _That_ doesn't\nshine,--knows better, indeed!\"\n\nHe seemed so hurt about it that Chubby hastened to pacify him. \"I'm very\nsorry,\" she said. \"Of course, I should like to paint your side of the\nsun very much, but it is a little difficult when I haven't ever been\nthere, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is,\" admitted the wymp; \"but if that is all, I'll take you\nthere this very minute. Will you come?\"\n\nChubby looked round; and there was Jerry still gazing up at the star\nwith the long tail, that was causing so much commotion among the\ncountries of the sky. Just then, it reached the moon and went straight\ninto it with a big splash; and Jerry heaved a deep sigh.\n\nThat decided Chubby. \"If you please,\" she said, turning to the wymp in a\ngreat hurry, \"I think we would rather go to the moon.\"\n\nThe wymp instantly flew into the most violent passion. \"What!\" he\nexclaimed, shaking all over with indignation. \"You would sooner go to\nthe moon than the back of the sun? Well, I _am_ sorry for you.\"\n\nChubby was just going to be frightened, when Jerry came and put his arm\nround her protectingly. \"You see,\" he explained to the wymp, \"it's not\nthe moon we want, it's the kite. And the kite has gone to the moon,\nunfortunately. I suppose I am glad it has gone,\" he added rather\ndoubtfully, \"but I do wish it had waited to take me with it.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" said the wymp, calming down a little, \"if you are quite sure\nyou don't _want_ to go to the moon, I shall have the greatest pleasure\nin taking you there. I'll call a comet at once.\" He put his fingers to\nhis mouth and blew a whistle that was long enough to reach the countries\nof the sky. \"Now I come to think of it,\" he continued thoughtfully, \"it\nis a very good thing you did not want to go to Wympland, because we\nshould have been obliged to wait until the morning.\"\n\n\"Why couldn't we go to-night?\" asked Jerry.\n\n\"Because there isn't a Wympland to go to,\" answered the wymp, promptly.\n\"When the sun goes down it takes the back of itself with itself, and\nthere isn't a Wympland again till next morning. I shouldn't be here\nnow, if I hadn't missed the last sunbeam this evening. That is the worst\nof living in a place that disappears every night.\"\n\n\"Oh, but it doesn't disappear really,\" said Chubby, who wanted to show\nthat she knew a little geography; \"the sun is shining somewhere else at\nthis very moment, only we can't see it.\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" said the wymp, scornfully. \"Don't you believe everything\nyou're told about the sun! Who said it didn't disappear, eh? Has any one\never gone after it to see?\"\n\n\"N-no,\" said Chubby, doubtfully, \"but--\"\n\n\"That proves it doesn't go on shining, then,\" said the wymp,\ntriumphantly. \"There's plenty of inquisitive people who'd have gone\nafter the sun long ago, if it hadn't the sense to disappear every night.\nIt must have some peace, you know, if it's got to come up smiling again\nthe next morning.\"\n\n\"Do the wymps disappear every night, too?\" asked Jerry.\n\n\"Of course they do,\" answered the wymp. \"Don't you?\"\n\n\"I didn't know we did,\" said Jerry, a little bewildered. \"I thought we\nonly went to sleep.\"\n\n\"Ah, you do that first,\" said the wymp. \"Then you disappear.\"\n\n\"No, we don't,\" said Chubby, positively. \"We shouldn't have dreams if we\ndisappeared.\"\n\n\"You certainly wouldn't have any dreams unless you did disappear,\"\nchuckled the wymp.\n\n\"Then what about to-night?\" demanded Jerry. \"Do you mean to say we have\ndisappeared now?\"\n\nThe wymp sighed. \"Some people never will know when they're not there,\"\nhe complained. \"But here is our comet; jump in, or else we shall be\nlate.\"\n\nDown swooped the great shining comet, and there it lay across the road,\nwaiting for them to mount. The children climbed on to its broad\nglittering tail and held tightly to each other, while the wymp mounted\nin front of them and stood like the man at the wheel, with his hand on\nthe comet's head; then up they flew at a terrific pace, right through\nthe wonderful blue darkness that stretched all round them. Far above was\nthe great land of light that lay round the moon; but the country of the\nstars came in between, and the stars were still so far off that they had\nnot even begun to look like real stars.\n\n\"Afraid of the dark?\" asked the wymp over his shoulder.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Chubby. \"I am only afraid of the dark you get at home\nwhen the candle is put out. This is a nice, friendly kind of darkness,\nand candles wouldn't make any difference to it.\"\n\n\"I don't know so much about that,\" said the wymp; \"if you had the\nsteering to do, you wouldn't mind a candle or two to help you.\"\n\n\"Do you steer by the points of the compass?\" asked Jerry, eagerly. Some\none had given him a compass on his last birthday, and he had steered by\nit ever since. Indeed, he had arrived late at school several times,\nthrough steering his way by the points of the compass.\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said the wymp; \"when you are sailing on a comet, you\nsteer by the points of the comet, of course.\" Just then, he gave a sharp\nturn to the points of the comet, and it sailed right out of the blue\ndarkness and took them into the dim mysterious greyness of the country\nof the stars.\n\n\"They _are_ like real stars,\" murmured Chubby, for she had begun to have\nserious doubts whether the stars she had painted on the kite were not\nwrong after all. It was very comforting to find that the stars that were\nwhizzing past them in hundreds and thousands looked just like the stars\nshe had been accustomed to see on Christmas trees, and had such sharp\npoints that it would not have been at all pleasant to run against one of\nthem by mistake. Indeed, the wymp had as much as he could do to steer\nthrough the country of the stars without coming into collision with\nthem, although the comet did not make half so much commotion in the sky\nas Jerry's kite had done. But then, Jerry's kite had never been trained\nto be a comet, and that made all the difference.\n\nIt grew lighter and lighter as they came nearer the moon, and even the\nstars began to look pale in the white light that was shining so close to\nthe edge of their country. The stars were growing fewer, too, for stars\nnaturally prefer to shine in a place where they can be seen, and just\nhere, at the edge of their country, they could hardly be seen at all.\nThen the wymp gave another turn to the points of the comet, and it\nglided gently from the country of the stars into the pale white country\nof the moon.\n\n\"It's like being inside a great flame that isn't hot,\" whispered Chubby.\n\nEven the wymp had to admit that the country of the moon had something in\nits favour. \"For those who like light,\" he allowed, \"the moon is all\nvery well. For my part, I prefer Wympland, where there isn't any light\nat all. You can't say that of any other country on either side of the\nsun!\"\n\n\"I don't want to say it,\" objected Chubby; \"I am very glad there _is_\nsome light in my country.\"\n\n\"But there isn't,\" retorted the wymp. \"There's only other people's light\nin your country! Where would you be, if you didn't borrow bits of light\nfrom the countries of the sky, eh?\"\n\nChubby thought it would be wiser to change the conversation. \"If you\nplease,\" she said politely, \"can you tell me when we shall get to the\nmoon?\"\n\n\"Why,\" laughed the wymp, \"we are in the moon now!\"\n\nChubby looked round her in bewilderment. \"But where are the eyes and the\nnose and the mouth?\" she asked.\n\nThe wymp shook his head. \"I am afraid,\" he said gravely, \"that you must\nhave found them in the soup plate. Perhaps Jerry knows where they are.\"\n\nBut Jerry was looking everywhere for something that was far more\nimportant. Some people might want to come all this way to look for the\nman in the moon, but for his part he intended to find the biggest kite\nin the village, the kite that had taken him six half-holidays to make.\n\"Do you think we shall find it soon?\" he asked impatiently.\n\nNobody answered him, for just then the comet came to such a sudden\nstandstill that all three of them were nearly jerked off into the air.\nIt was not the comet's fault, however, for right in its way was Jerry's\nkite; and it was lucky for everybody, that night, that there was not an\nextremely bad accident in the countries of the sky.\n\n\"Why don't you look where you are going?\" asked the kite, in just the\nflippant fly away sort of tone one would expect from a kite.\n\nJerry was so astonished at being addressed in this impudent manner by a\nthing he had made with his own hands, that he did not know what to\nreply. The comet, however, was a comet of a few words; and all it did\nwas to put its head down and rush straight at Jerry's kite. There is no\ndoubt that in another minute there would have been a terrific battle in\nthe middle of the moon, if a strange, clear voice from beyond had not\nspoken just in time to stop it.\n\n\"Who is daring to make all this commotion in my country?\" said the\nvoice.\n\n\"Hullo!\" muttered the wymp, suddenly; \"I was expecting that. Good-bye,\nchildren; I'm off!\" And pointing his hands downward, he took a dive from\nthe head of the comet and disappeared in the direction of the country of\nthe stars.\n\nAt the same instant, out from the pale white distance of the country of\nthe moon glided a tall figure, as white and delicate and shimmering as\nthe light that surrounded it.\n\n\"Is it--can it be the man in the moon?\" whispered Chubby to the boy\nbeside her.\n\nThen the figure came closer, and they saw that it was a wonderful,\nmysterious-looking, white witch-woman.\n\n\"I am the Lady of the Moon,\" she said, in the same clear, cold voice.\n\"Snow and stillness and space are wherever I go; when I smile, I make\nthe whole world beautiful, but my smile takes the colour away from the\nflowers and the ripple away from the water and the warmth away from the\nsunshine.\"\n\nShe looked round, and her eye lighted on Jerry's kite. \"What is that\ncreature doing in my country?\" she demanded.\n\nAll the impudence seemed to have gone out of the biggest kite in the\nvillage, for it lay there trembling at the feet of the Lady of the\nMoon, and had not so much as a word to say for itself. Jerry, however,\nsummoned up courage to answer for it. After all, it was through him that\nthe kite was there, and he naturally felt bound to defend it.\n\n\"If you please,\" he said, \"it is my kite. I made it, all by myself,--it\ntook six half-holidays; and Chubby painted the moon and the stars on\nit.\"\n\n\"I am afraid,\" said Chubby, hurriedly, \"that the moon is not very much\nlike the moon, but it was the best I could do with three paints and a\nbrush that hadn't any hairs. The stars are right,\" she added anxiously.\n\nThe Lady of the Moon smiled contemptuously. \"Stars, indeed!\" she\nobserved. \"What does it matter how the stars are painted? The moon is\nfar more important, and you have made a regular muddle of that! And who\ntold you children that you might come into my country, I should like to\nknow?\"\n\n\"The wymp brought us,\" explained Jerry. \"He was here a minute ago, but\nhe has just left.\"\n\n\"No doubt he has,\" said the Lady of the Moon, with a little laugh that\nmade them shiver. \"Wymps know better than to come in my way. I can turn\ntheir laughter into hoar-frost, and they don't like that. As for you,\nunless you want to be frozen tight to the middle of the moon for the\nrest of your lives, you had better make haste home again.\"\n\nChubby was only too anxious to be off, for she had no wish to spend the\nrest of her life with some one who made people shiver whenever she\nlaughed. Jerry, however, did not mean to have his journey to the moon\nfor nothing.\n\n\"Please, may I take my kite back with me?\" he asked boldly. \"I want to\nshow the other boys and girls that it did fly to the moon after all.\"\n\n\"That's all very well,\" objected the kite, who had stopped trembling and\nbecome impudent again; \"but I don't want to go back among a lot of girls\nand boys who do not know how to appreciate me. When a fellow has once\nbeen a comet, you cannot expect him to end his days as a common kite.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" said the Lady of the Moon, gathering her mantle closely\nround her and stepping away from them, \"settle that among yourselves,\nonly please go out of my country first. For my part, I must go and put\nthe finishing touches to that hoar-frost of mine before dawn.\"\n\nShe had hardly finished speaking when a faint gleam of pink pierced the\nwhite light around her and touched the edge of her mantle. She gave a\nshrill cry instantly, and waved her arms about her in the greatest\nexcitement.\n\n\"Go, go, go! Dawn is coming, and you will be swallowed up in the setting\nof the moon,\" she screamed at them. \"Go, go, go!\"\n\nChubby began to feel tearful, for it is not pleasant to be told that one\nis going to be swallowed up in anything. But Jerry had a sudden\ninspiration.\n\n\"Jump, Chubby, jump!\" he shouted, seizing her by the arm and springing\naway from the comet. Chubby must have done as she was told, for the next\nminute she found herself sitting beside him, on the top of the biggest\nkite in the village. As for the comet, it was only too anxious to get\nback to the place where it could shine and be seen; so it took a great\ndive down into the country of the stars, just as the wymp had done, and\nthey never saw it again.\n\n\"Now,\" said Jerry sternly to his kite, \"you've just got to take us home\nstraightway without any more nonsense! If you want to stay and be\nswallowed up, we don't. You can come back again and be a comet for the\nrest of your days, for all I care; but I'm determined that you shall\nshow the village first that you know how to fly. Now, down you go!\"\n\nEvidently, the kite felt that there was some sense in Jerry's words, for\nit made no further objections, but sailed swiftly out of the country of\nthe moon just in time to escape being swallowed up. The downward journey\nwas much simpler than the one of the night before, for the sun was\nrising as fast as it could, and the stars were disappearing so rapidly\nthat there were hardly any of them left to get in the way. This was a\nvery good thing, for, as I said before, Jerry's kite had not been\ntrained to be a comet, and it takes a good deal of steering to get\nthrough the countries of the sky without an accident on the way.\n\nChubby was hungry enough to remember her fairy cake; and as it was\nnearly breakfast time, of course it tasted of milk and porridge and eggs\nand bacon. But Jerry refused to touch a mouthful. He was busy thinking\nof what the other boys and girls would say, when they saw him come\nsailing home on his kite.\n\nThe sun was shining brightly, and the birds were singing, and the\nchildren were laughing on their way to school, when Jerry and Chubby at\nlast reached home on the biggest kite in the village.\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" cried all the boys and girls, rushing up to them in great\nexcitement. \"Here's Jerry and Chubby been sailing about on the biggest\nkite in the village! Where have you been, Jerry?\"\n\nJerry smiled in a superior manner, and waved them all back with his\nhand.\n\n\"What a fuss you do make, to be sure!\" he observed. \"Didn't I tell you\nmy kite was going to the moon?\"\n\nThen Jerry went home to breakfast; but Jerry's kite sailed back to the\ncountries of the sky, and it has been a comet ever since.\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\n\nItalic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n\nMinor typographical errors have been corrected.\n\nBoth \"hillside\" and \"hill-side\" were used in this text. This has been\nretained.\n\nBoth \"some one\" and \"someone\" were used in this text. This has been\nretained.\n\nThere was one occurrence of \"WillowHerb\" in the text. This was changed\nto \"Willow-Herb\", as it appeared as such multiple times.","title":"The Other Side of the Sun: Fairy Stories","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":35398}