hole year. But the Queen was very
anxious, for she knew that the fairies are a queer lot, and their
borders were very close indeed.

"We must be very careful to slight none of them at the christening," she
said, "for goodness knows what they might do, if we did!"

So the wise-men drew up the lists, and when the day for the christening
arrived, the fairies were all there, and everything went as smoothly as
a frosted cake.

But the Queen said to the Lady-in-waiting:

"The first fairy godmother gave her nothing but a kiss! I don't call
that much of a gift!"

"'Sh!" whispered the Lady-in-waiting. "The fairies hear everything!"

And indeed, the fairy heard her well enough, and very angry she was
about it, too. For she was so old that she knew all about it, from
beginning to end, and she was sure that the Wizard with Three Dragons
was sitting in the Black Forest, watching the whole matter in his
crystal globe. So she had whispered her gift--which was nothing more nor
less than a Fearless Heart--into the ear of the Little Princess. But the
Queen thought she had only kissed her.

So, when the clock was on the hour of four (which, as every one knows,
is the end of christenings and fairy gifts) the first godmother went up
to the golden cradle.

"Since my first gift was not satisfactory to every one," she said,
angrily, "I will give the Little Princess another. And that is, that
when the time comes she shall marry the Prince of the Black Heart!"

Then the clock struck four, while the Queen wept on the bosom of the
Lady-in-waiting.

And that was the end of the christening.

Then the King called the wise-men together, and for forty days and
nights they read the books and studied the stars.

In the end, they laid out a Garden, with a wall so high that the sun
could not shine over it until noon, and so broad that it was a day's
journey for a swift horse to cross it. One tiny door there was: but the
first gate was of iron, and five-and-twenty men-at-arms stood before it,
day and night, with drawn swords; the second gate was of beaten copper,
and before that were fifty archers, with arrows on the string; the third
gate was of triple brass, and before it a hundred knights, in full
armor, rode without ceasing.

Into the Garden went the Little Princess, and the Queen, and all her
ladies; but no man might pass the gates, save the King himself. And
there the Princess dwelt until her seventeenth birthday, without seeing
any m