ybody got what they wanted
most. There were no more noises of strife without, nor discontents
within the palace; and on the last day of the feast who should arrive
but Dame Frostyface, in her grey hood and cloak.

Snowflower was right glad to see her grandmother--so were the King and
Prince, for they had known the Dame in their youth. They kept the feast
for a few days more; and when it was ended everything was right in the
kingdom. King Winwealth and Prince Wisewit reigned once more together;
and because Snowflower was the best girl in all that country, they chose
her to be their heiress, instead of Princess Greedalind.

From that day forward she wore white velvet and satin; she had seven
pages, and lived in the grandest part of the palace. Dame Frostyface,
too, was made a great lady. They put a new velvet cushion on her chair,
and she sat in a gown of grey cloth, edged with gold, spinning on an
ivory wheel in a fine painted parlour.

Prince Wisewit built a great summer-house covered with vines and roses,
on the spot where her old cottage stood. He also made a highway through
the forest, that all good people might come and go there at their
leisure; and the cunning fairy Fortunetta, finding that her reign was
over in those parts, set off on a journey round the world, and did not
return in the time of this story.

Good boys and girls, who may chance to read it, that time is long ago.
Great wars, work, and learning have passed over the world since then,
and changed all its fashions. Kings make no seven-day feasts for
all-comers now. Queens and princesses, however greedy, do not mine for
gold. Chairs tell no tales. Wells work no wonders; and there are no such
doings on hills and forests, for the fairies dance no more. Some say it
was the hum of schools--some think it was the din of factories that
frightened them. But nobody has seen them for many a year, except, it is
said, one Hans Christian Andersen, in Denmark, whose tales of the
fairies are so good that they must have been heard from themselves.

It is certain that no living man knows the later history of King
Winwealth's country, nor what became of the people who lived and
visited at his palace. Yet there are people who believe that the King
still falls asleep on his throne and into low spirits in the evening;
that Queen Wantall and Princess Greedalind have found the gold, and
begun to buy; that Dame Frostyface yet spins--they cannot tell where;
that Snowflower