ightest doubt that the Duke would choose
her. So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to
follow lest the Queen should mischief her.

But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
Spanish chestnuts she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until
she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.

[Illustration: A chrysanthemum heard her, and said pointedly,
'Hoity-toity, what is this?']

The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was
composed of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so
forming a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of
little people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour
compared to the glorious creatures within that luminous circle, who
were so bewilderingly bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time
she looked at them.

It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: yet out of
love his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks of
the Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way
darling ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as
they were told to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.

Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke's heart and
hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly
sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools' caps in obscure places
and, every time they heard that 'Cold, quite cold,' bowed their
disgraced little heads.

She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you
now why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got
wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which
he had to break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.

The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance,
so heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are
sad, and remember them again when they are merry. David tells me that
fairies never say, 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel
_dancey_.'

Well, they were looking very undancey indeed, when sudden laughter
broke out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived
and was insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.

Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she
had really no hope; no one seemed to