g popped up their heads and peered over the edge of the
sun and stared in amazement at what was going on in Wympland.

So the Fairy Queen was right, as she always is, and the wymps were made
to cry for once in their lives; and the fairies have as good a joke
against the wymps as the wymps ever had against the fairies. Perhaps
that is why the wymps play so few tricks on the fairies, now; but the
Fairy Queen only smiles when people say that, so she probably knows
better.

[Illustration: SUNNY WAS SO ASTONISHED THAT SHE STOPPED CRYING AT ONCE]

The Story of Honey and Sunny

There was once a wonderful country in which everything was beautiful.
All the trees, and the flowers, and the birds, and the animals were
just as beautiful as could be imagined; and the shops, and the houses,
and the palaces were the same. Of course all the little girls and boys
were beautiful, too; but that is the same everywhere. Now, whether it
was because of the beauty of his kingdom, or whether it was merely on
account of his royal birth, it is impossible to say, but the King was
so extremely nervous that his life was no pleasure to him.

"I cannot bear anything noisy," he said. "Noise is so very alarming."
So when the baby Princess cried, he sent her away to another King's
country, to be brought up in a village nobody had ever heard of, so
that her royal father should not be disturbed. And when he heard that
the Queen, his wife, had gone after her, he hardly raised his royal
eyebrows. "She laughed too much," he observed, thoughtfully.

The palace grew quieter day by day. The ladies in waiting were
forbidden to wear high heels because they made such a clatter on the
marble floors; so everybody knew for the first time how short everybody
else was. Every courtier whose boots creaked was instantly banished,
and if he had a cough into the bargain he was beheaded as well; but the
climate was so delightful that this very rarely happened. In time,
everybody at court took to speaking in a whisper, in order to spare the
King's nerves; and it even became the fashion to talk as little as
possible. The King was immensely pleased at this. "Anybody can talk,"
he said; "but it is a sign of great refinement to be silent." After
that, even the ladies in waiting were sometimes silent for quite half
an hour. It is true that the King talked whenever he felt inclined,
but that, of course, was necessary.

The silence of the court soon spr