"Then go back and tell her so," said the witch woman, promptly.

"Do you think that will make her come out from her house of rose leaves?" asked King Grumbelo.

"I should n't wonder," said the Wise Woman of the Wood; "but go and see for yourself. There is no need to thank me, for any one who takes the trouble to follow the Wise Woman of the Wood to her home is welcome to what he may find when he gets there."

Indeed, before he had time to thank her he found himself once more outside the tree, with his crown lying at his feet and his horse standing at his side. He was in such a hurry to get back to the Lady Whimsical, however, that he did not stay to pick up his crown, but rode bareheaded all through the night and reached the hedge of sweet-briar and honeysuckle precisely at two hours after sunrise.

"Dear, dear," complained the dragon; "do you mean to say you 've come back again?"

"I have some good news for you," said King Grumbelo, jovially. "There is no spell over the Lady Whimsical after all!"

"Of course there is n't," said the dragon, as he slowly unfastened the gates of apple-blossom. "Did n't I tell you she was n't a Princess?"

King Grumbelo did not stay to argue the point with him, but walked quickly up the path and stopped in front of the dainty little house all made of rose leaves.

"Lady Whimsical," he said, very gently and humbly, "will it please you to smile on me once more? I have discovered that you are the wisest person in the world, and that I am by far the most foolish."

When the Lady Whimsical looked out of her window and saw the King standing there so humbly without his crown, the tears came right into her wonderful eyes and stayed there.

"Oh!" she cried, "I am so glad you have come back! I was afraid you were never coming back any more."

She held out her two little hands, and the King kissed them. Then she came running down the stairs as fast as she could; and they sat on the doorstep side by side, and talked.

"I feel as though I should never stop talking again! Do you mind?"

asked Lady Whimsical.

"I should like nothing better," said King Grumbelo. "But first of all I must confess to you that I have an extremely ugly name. Do you think you can bear to hear it?"

"I know it already!" laughed the Lady Whimsical. "Do you suppose I have n't coaxed it out of my dragon long ago? But I, too, have something to confess to you. Do you think it will make you angry?"

"I am quite sure I shall never be angry again," declared the King.

"Then," said Lady Whimsical, looking extremely solemn, "to begin with, I am not a Princess at all."

"As if I did n't know that!" laughed the King. "The dragon told me, ever so long ago!"

"He did n't tell you the rest, so stop laughing and listen to me," said Lady Whimsical, with severity. "I knew all the while who you were and what you wanted, and I pretended to be under a spell just to tease you."

"I know that, too," said the King, triumphantly. "The Wise Woman of the Wood told me."

"Did she tell you that I came and hid myself here on purpose, because I heard you were looking for a Princess and I wanted you to find me?"

asked the Lady Whimsical, softly.

"n.o.body told me that," answered King Grumbelo; "I guessed it for myself."

"What will the Professor of Practical Jokes say, when you come home without the Princess you went out to find?" she asked mischievously.

The King had no time to answer, for at that moment the Professor of Practical Jokes--whose profession always required him to arrive unexpectedly in places where he was not wanted--appeared at the apple-blossom gates and answered Lady Whimsical's question himself.

"There is nothing to say," he observed. "There never was a Princess for your Majesty to find, so of course your Majesty has n't found her."

"There never was anybody for you to find except me," added Lady Whimsical, who was nodding at the Professor as though she had known him all her life. "The other Princess was a practical joke, don't you see.

Do you mean to say my dragon did not tell you _that_, too?"

"Then, who are you?" asked King Grumbelo in bewilderment. The Lady Whimsical laughed, as she had laughed every day for a month when she banged the door in the King's face.

"Can't you guess?" she exclaimed. "Why, I am just the daughter of the Professor of Practical Jokes!"

And the King only wondered that he had not guessed it long ago.

As they went out through the apple-blossom gates, the dainty little house of rose leaves vanished away because it was no longer wanted, and so did the beautiful flower-garden, and the hedge of sweet-briar and honeysuckle, and the sleepy good-natured dragon. They had no trouble in getting home, for the Wise Woman of the Wood had a hand in the matter, and the road came racing towards them as fast as an express train; all they had to do was to stand quite still and wait until King Grumbelo's country came hurrying along, which was the most convenient way of travelling any one could possibly invent. When the city reached them they found they were just in time to be married, for the people were on the point of celebrating their wedding for the hundred and first time; so the King and Queen were married almost before they knew it themselves, and certainly before the people discovered that somebody was really being married at last. This, however, was not at all surprising, for the real wedding was very much the same as all the make-believe ones, except that it took a little longer because the King and Queen were not so used to being married as the people were to marrying them.

After that, every one was as happy as it was possible to be. The country had grown so accustomed to being frivolous that it never became serious again; and the King never made another law, because the people were so fond of Lady Whimsical that they did everything she told them, and therefore no laws were needed. The result of all this happiness was that n.o.body in the kingdom ever grew old; and the Lady Whimsical who sits and laughs on her throne at this very moment is the same Lady Whimsical who sat and laughed on the doorstep of her rose-leaf house, years and years and years ago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LADY EMMELINA IS ALWAYS KEPT IN HER PROPER PLACE NOW]

The Doll that came straight from Fairyland

The country was celebrating the tenth birthday of the Prince Perfection. That particular country always celebrated the tenth birthday of its princes and princesses, but never before had it gone so completely wild with joy. The fireworks began punctually at sunrise, and so did everything else that was worth beginning; and the happy shouts of the people made conversation quite impossible, except in the royal family, which was fully accustomed to being shouted at whenever the country had a whole holiday. The Prince had five hundred and fifty-four birthday presents, and his Secretaries spent all their summer holidays in writing letters to acknowledge them; and every child in the kingdom who was of the same age as the Prince was allowed to come to the palace gates and receive a royal smile and a large box of barley sugar from Prince Perfection himself. In the afternoon, the Prince drove through the streets over a carpet of flowers and smiled without stopping; and by his side sat the little Princess Pansy, who was not smiling at all, for she had no birthday and no presents, and two years was a long time to wait before she, too, should be ten years old. Still, she was so fond of the Prince Perfection that she would not have let him guess for a moment that she felt envious of him, although this he was in no danger of doing, for he was so brimful of happiness that he had no time to think about his sister at all. Truly, it is worth while to be ten years old if one is a Prince! In the evening there was a banquet of a hundred and twenty courses, which was the exact number of months in the Prince's life; and the two children sat at the head of the table between their royal parents, and managed to keep awake until the moment arrived to cut the birthday cake.

That was when the catastrophe occurred. At the moment n.o.body suspected that it was going to be a catastrophe at all. It seemed the most fortunate thing in the world that the Prince's G.o.dmother, the Fairy Zigzag, should manage to arrive just in time to drink her G.o.dson's health. Most people would think that a catastrophe was far more likely to have occurred if the King and Queen had forgotten to invite the Fairy Zigzag. That only shows how little most of us know about fairy G.o.dmothers. The truth is that the Fairy Zigzag was not like other G.o.dmothers at all. She did not like banquets and she did not like noise; and she would much sooner have sent her present by post. It would never have done, however, to refuse the Queen's invitation, for that is what no fairy G.o.dmother has ever been known to do; so she came at the very last minute with a very bad grace, and she meant to go away again as soon as she could.

Bang! What a noise she made as she came down the chimney in a cloud of blue smoke! If she had not been quite so cross she would have arrived through the window in her best chariot drawn by sea-gulls; but she was determined to take as little trouble as possible over the matter, and no one could take less trouble over anything than to come straight down the chimney.

"Oh!" said every one with a little scream; and the Prince was so startled that he cut an extremely crooked slice of cake. As soon as the blue smoke cleared away, however, and he saw that it was his fairy G.o.dmother, he recovered his good manners without any difficulty, and walked across the room to greet her.

"I am delighted to see you, dear G.o.dmother," said Prince Perfection with his best birthday smile, which he had been saving up all day on purpose. "Would you like to have a piece of cake?"

His parents beamed with pleasure at the charming manners of Prince Perfection; and the little Princess rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and wondered how long it would take to live through two whole years, so that she might have a birthday party and a birthday cake, and a visit from her fairy G.o.dmother. The Fairy Zigzag, however, did not seem at all impressed by the charming manners of her G.o.dson.

"I never eat cake," she said, without giving so much as a look at the crooked slice of cake which the Prince was handing her on a real gold plate. Her G.o.dson put down the cake immediately, and took up a silver goblet filled to the brim with sparkling ginger-beer.

"You have come just in time, dear G.o.dmother, to drink my health," he said, just as politely as ever.

"I never drink healths," said the Fairy Zigzag, frowning. "I have plenty of my own, thank you. What's the matter with your health that you want every one to drink it up? You 'd better keep it: it may come in useful, later on."

This was such an entirely new view of the matter that a complete silence fell on every one in the room; and all the guests put down their gla.s.ses of ginger beer, and stared into them to see if the Prince's health was floating about on the top. In the midst of the pause, the Fairy Zigzag stalked to the table, nodded to the royal parents, and took the seat that had been reserved for her at the Queen's right hand.

"So good of you to come," murmured the Queen, nervously. "We never thought you would give us so great a pleasure."

"Oh, didn't you? Then, why did you invite me?" snapped the fairy G.o.dmother. The Queen said nothing, for she did not know what to say.

The King did his best to put matters right.