e to tell us the kind of
things that a real Queen would like us to do?"

"Yes, yes!" shouted all the other wymps, gleefully. "Tell us what a
real Queen would like us to do!"

So Molly clambered up on the King's throne, and tried to look as much
like a Queen as a very little girl, in a very short frock and a very
pink pinafore, knows how to look; and the wymps stood in front of her,
closely packed together; and she began to tell them some of the things
that a real Queen would like them to do.

"First of all," said Molly, "a real Queen does n't like her toes
trodden on, and her pinafore crumpled, and her hair pulled. She does
n't like being screamed at, either; and she never allows herself to be
ordered about by any one. She likes to order other people about
instead, and she likes the other people to be very pleased when she
orders them about, and not to go slowly and look disagreeable and
grumble. She likes a new frock every Sunday, and a birthday every
month; and she always drinks milk for supper. It is supper time now,"
added the little Queen, beginning to yawn.

All the wymps at once hurled themselves helter-skelter through the sun
again, in search of milk for their new Queen's supper. But Queer ran
faster than any of them, and he took the very milk that Molly's own
mother had just milked into the pail for herself; and the strangest
thing of all was that, although the pail became empty before her eyes
and she had to go without any supper, Molly's mother was quite happy
after that and did not worry any more about her little girl who had so
strangely disappeared in the morning. That shows what the wymps can do
when they forget to be wympish. And Molly drank her milk and went to
sleep in her dream-palace, and was the happiest little Queen on either
side of the sun; and the wymps--well, it is impossible to describe what
the wymps felt like.

Molly was Queen of Wympland for a great many days, and there had never
reigned such peace at the back of the sun, nor in the whole world of
Fairyland either. It was so remarkable that the Fairy Queen sent for
Capricious, one day, and asked her why nobody had anything to grumble
about. Any one might have thought from the Fairy Queen's tone that she
was not particularly pleased at so much contentment, but of course that
could not possibly be the case.

"Please, your Majesty," said Capricious, who had been waiting anxiously
to be asked this very question for quite a long