ve broken the enchantment," she
cried, "and now you shall be the King of the Golden Castle and reign
with me."

"Oh, but I can't," said Teddy, "because--because---"

But the princess drew him out with her through the hall, and there they
were at the head of the flight of glass steps. A great host of soldiers
and courtiers were running up it. They were dressed in cloth of gold,
and they shouted at the sight of Teddy: "Hail to the hero! Hail to the
hero!" and Teddy knew them by their voices for the golden birds that had
fluttered around him in the garden below.

"And all this is yours," said the beautiful princess, turning toward him
with---

* * * * * * * *

"So that is the story of the yellow square," said the Counterpane Fairy.

Teddy looked about him. The golden castle was gone, and the stairs, and
the shouting courtiers. He was lying in bed with the silk coverlet over
his little knees and Hannah was still singing in the kitchen below.

"Did you like it?" asked the fairy.

Teddy heaved a deep sigh. "Oh! Wasn't it beautiful?" he said. Then he
lay for a while thinking and smiling. "Wasn't the princess lovely?" he
whispered half to himself.

The Counterpane Fairy got up slowly and stiffly, and picked up the staff
that she had laid down beside her. "Well, I must be journeying on," she
said.

"Oh, no, no!" cried Teddy. "Please don't go yet."

"Yes, I must," said the Counterpane Fairy. "I hear your mother coming."

"But will you come back again?" cried Teddy.

The Counterpane Fairy made no answer. She was walking down the other
side of the bedquilt hill, and Teddy heard her voice, little and thin,
dying away in the distance: "Oh dear, dear, dear! What a hill to go
down! What a hill it is! Oh dear, dear, dear!"

Then the door opened and his mother came in. She was looking rested, and
she smiled at him lovingly, but the little brown Counterpane Fairy was
gone.

CHAPTER SECOND. THE OWLS AND THE GAMBLESOME ELF.

THE next morning when Teddy awoke it was still very early; so early that
even Hannah was not yet stirring.

Outside everything was wrapped in a silvery mist, and now and then a
drop of moisture plumped down on the porch roof.

Teddy lay still for a while, growing wider and wider awake, and then he
began to stir restlessly and wish that his mother would come. After a
while he called her, but the house was so silent that he didn't like to
call very loudly, and there