are_ we, eh, Mater?"

"It is no use asking _me_, Clarence. I know no more than you do. The
last thing I remember was our all getting into the car to go and see the
Pageant Committee. I've a vague recollection of ostriches--but no, I
must have been dreaming _them_. However, the car seems to have upset
somehow, only I don't see it about anywhere."

"No," said Mr. Stimpson, "or old Thingumagig, or those fellows with the
trumpets either."

"Dumped us down here, and gone off with the car," said Clarence. "Looks
as if we'd been the victims of a practical joke, what?"

"They would never dare to do that!" said his Mother. "I expect they have
missed their way in the dark. Very careless of them. I don't know what
Lady Harriet and the Committee will think of me. They'll probably ask
somebody else to take the part of Queen before we can get there--for I'm
sure we must be a good hundred miles away from Gablehurst!"

"The Baron said that he was taking us to Maerchenland, Mrs. Stimpson,"
said Daphne; "and I'm _almost_ sure that that is where we really are."

"And where may Maerchenland be?" inquired Mrs. Stimpson sharply. "I never
heard of it myself."

"Well," said Daphne, "it's another name for--for Fairyland, you know."

"Fairyland indeed!" replied Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson with some
irritation. "You will find it difficult to persuade me to believe that I
am in _Fairyland_, Miss Heritage! To begin with, there is no such place,
and if there was, perhaps you will kindly tell me how we could possibly
have got to it?"

"Through the air," explained Daphne patiently. "That car was drawn by
_storks_, you see--not ostriches."

"When you have _quite_ woke up, Miss Heritage," said Mrs. Stimpson, "you
will realise what nonsense you are talking."

"Whatever this place is," said Clarence, "it don't look English,
somehow, to _me_. I mean to say--that town over there--what?" He
pointed across the wide plain to a cluster of towers, spires, gables,
and pinnacles which glittered and gleamed faintly through the shimmering
morning haze.

"It certainly has rather a Continental appearance," observed his father.

"If it has," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "it is only some buildings or
scenery or something they have run up for the Pageant. So we haven't
been taken in the wrong direction after all."

"_I_ believe, Mummy," chirped Ruby, "Miss Heritage is right, and this
_is_ Fairyland."

"Don't be so ridiculous, child! You'll believe next tha