f 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," Maimie answered politely, "of course your face is
just a tiny bit homely, but--" Really it was quite awkward for her.

Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar. He had gone
to a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London
were on view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return home
instead of being dissatisfied with Maimie's mother he had said, "You
can't think, my dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face again."

Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously,
indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose
her. So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to
follow lest the Queen should mischief her.

But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until
she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.

The light, whic