ng, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to
clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks
these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even these
were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment
of the opening of the gates. David and I once found a fairy ring quite
warm.

But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the
board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at
six-thirty, for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to
get begun half an hour earlier.

[Illustration: _These tricky fairies sometimes change the board on a
ball night._]

If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famous
Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights; hundreds of lovely
fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their wedding
rings round their waists; the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding up the
ladies' trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter cherries,
which are the fairy-lanterns; the cloakroom where they put on their
silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps; the flowers streaming
up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because they can
lend a pin; the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it, and
behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on which
he blows when her Majesty wants to know the time.

[Illustration: _When her Majesty wants to know the time._]

The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made
of chestnut blossom. The way the fairy servants do is this: The men,
scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the
blossom falls like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together by
whisking their skirts until it is exactly like a tablecloth, and that
is how they get their tablecloth.

They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn
wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but
the bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is
bread-and-butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and
cakes to end with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The
fairies sit round on mushrooms, and at first they are well-behaved and
always cough