t. Wherever the shadows fell upon the
brake a glow-worm made a point of exhibiting itself, and the bright
August moon sailed slowly above, pleased to look down upon so charming
a scene of merriment; for they wrong the moon who assert that she has
an objection to mirth,--with the mirth of fairies she has all possible
sympathy. Here and there in the thicket the scarce honeysuckles--in
August honeysuckles are somewhat out of season--hung their rich
festoons, and at that moment they were crowded with the elderly fairies,
who had given up dancing and taken to scandal. Besides the honeysuckle
you might see the hawkweed and the white convolvulus, varying the soft
verdure of the thicket; and mushrooms in abundance had sprung up in
the circle, glittering in the silver moonlight, and acceptable beyond
measure to the dancers: every one knows how agreeable a thing tents are
in a _fete champetre_! I was mistaken in saying that the brake closed
the circle entirely round; for there was one gap, scarcely apparent to
mortals, through which a fairy at least might catch a view of a
brook that was close at hand, rippling in the stars, and checkered at
intervals by the rich weeds floating on the surface, interspersed
with the delicate arrowhead and the silver water-lily. Then the trees
themselves, in their prodigal variety of hues,--the blue, the purple,
the yellowing tint, the tender and silvery verdure, and the deep mass
of shade frowning into black; the willow, the elm, the ash, the fir, and
the lime, "and, best of all, Old England's haunted oak;" these hues were
broken again into a thousand minor and subtler shades as the twinkling
stars pierced the foliage, or the moon slept with a richer light upon
some favoured glade.

It was a gala night; the elderly fairies, as I said before, were
chatting among the honeysuckles; the young were flirting, and dancing,
and making love; the middle-aged talked politics under the mushrooms;
and the queen herself and half-a-dozen of her favourites were yawning
their pleasure from a little mound covered with the thickest moss.

"It has been very dull, madam, ever since Prince Fayzenheim left us,"
said the fairy Nip.

The queen sighed.

"How handsome the prince is!" said Pipalee.

The queen blushed.

"He wore the prettiest dress in the world; and what a mustache!" cried
Pipalee, fanning herself with her left wing.

"He was a coxcomb," said the lord treasurer, sourly. The lord treasurer
was the hon