cold."_]

'How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools' caps!'
Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very recklessly, for
the Cupids hate to be laughed at.

It is always easy to discover where a fairies' ball is being held, as
ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
their pumps. This night the ribbons were red, and looked very pretty
on the snow.

Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just
time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms
and pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front
and six behind; in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train
held up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined
a lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about.
She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was
her neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of
course showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have
glorified it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by
pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye
them, and you cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen
the ladies' busts in the jewellers' windows.

Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a passion,
tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt
them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the
doctor had said 'Cold, quite cold.'

Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over
a dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to
climb out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most
kindly went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and
explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor
street singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would
have her.

'Of course,' she said, 'I am rather plain,' and this made Maimie
uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
plain for a fairy.

It was difficult to know what to reply.

'I see you think I have no chance,' Brownie said falteringly.

'I don't say that,'