, nor pull my hair. I do not want to go away from
you, but it is time for me to go back to the other side of the sun.
Will you please show me how to get there, dear little wymps?"

When they saw that she was quite determined to go, they led her very
sadly to the back of the sun; and nobody made a single joke on the way,
and there was not a smile to be seen in the whole of that sad little
procession. There had never been so little laughter and so much
dolefulness in the Land of the Wymps.

"How am I to get through that?" asked Molly, rubbing the tears out of
her eyes and looking up at the back of the big round sun; "and shall I
tumble all the way down when I get to the other side?"

"It is quite easy," explained Skilful. "You have only to shut your
eyes and jump through it, and the sunbeams will catch you on the other
side; and you can slide down the one that shines into the shoemaker's
garden, where your mother sits watching for you."

Then Molly rubbed her eyes again, for there were still a great many
tears in them, and the more she rubbed them away the faster they came
again, until she was really afraid the wymps would see that she was
crying; and that would never do, for she felt quite sure that a real
Queen should never cry. So she kissed her hand to her sad little
subjects and promised to come back again some day; and then she shut
her eyes tight and jumped through the big round sun and slid down the
sunbeam that shone into the shoemaker's garden. And as she sped down
the shining, slippery sunbeam, she could hear Skilful and Wilful and
Captious and Queer in the distance, singing their funny little song
about her:--

"You have surely bewymped all the wymps you came near,
Besides Skilful and Wilful and Captious and Queer!
And now that you 've gone and your wymping is done,
The world has grown sad at the back of the sun."

Molly never knew what happened when they finished singing; but the
fairies knew, because they were hiding all round the edge of the sun at
the time. And it was the most remarkable thing that had ever happened
in Wympland.

The wymps say that Queer began it; and this is extremely likely, for
Queer was always a little different from the other wymps. Anyhow, they
very soon followed his example; and so it was that all the wymps at the
back of the sun sat down on the ground and cried, because their
bewymping little Queen was no longer with them. And all the fairies
who were hidin