this very night to do that which makes both fairies and mortals lovelier and better, with every new effort. Do you know what it is? It is, trying to add to the happiness of another.

And now the Queen and her maids of honor gracefully alighted with the eagerly proffered assistance of the fashionable young fairy dandies; and the court gathered respectfully around, as the beautiful Queen seated herself on her throne, and gently waved her sceptre to command attention.

"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen," said her Majesty, in a voice of perfect music, "I have called you together three nights before our opening midsummer festival, because I know by my fairy power, that a mortal—a gentle, lovely boy—will arrive here to-morrow, across whose young life the harsh wings of pain and affliction have passed. For a month or more he has so drooped and faded, that I fear, before long, his pure life will be ended. His mother watches over him with the undying, untiring love, which only a mother knows. We can help her, my beloved subjects, and we will; we can steal the venom from his painful sleep, by giving him fairy dreams; and on our gala nights we will gently lift him from his couch, and bring him here. His sweet presence will cast no shadow on our festivities, so pure and lovely have been all the thoughts, words, and actions of his short life."

A murmur of pleasure rose from the as sembled court, and the good and beautiful Queen saw with delight, that her proposal had given pleasure to all her subjects, with one exception; and he was her very honest, but still more disagreeable prime minister, who, being a sour, meddlesome old bachelor, hated children. His temper was not particularly sweet just then, because he was making wry faces over an attack of the gout in his great toe, from indulging too freely in May-dew wine, and eating too often of roasted tiger-lily, which is a very highly seasoned dish, and difficult to digest, unless you take immediately after eating, half a dozen lady-slipper pills, which my lord the prime minister never would take, on account of the name—for of course, if he hated chil dren he hated the ladies also—and as I was saying, he felt very cross, and inclined to find fault with any thing anybody else proposed; so making as low a bow as his stiff back would permit, he began, with an abominable nasal twang: "May it please your Majesty, who is this child you deign to favor so highly?"

"He is called Lame Charley!" graciously answered the Queen. "He is the darling of all who know him."

"Are there any other children in the family, my liege?" snarled the prime minister.

"About three dozen, more or less," answered the Queen, frowning slightly, for she was not quite certain as to the number, and did not like to be questioned. "Humph!" grumbled the prime minister. Then muttering to himself, "Three dozen children! all eating dreadful pumpkin-pie—with cheeks like saddle-bags, and voices loud enough to make a mummy jump out of his skin in an ecstasy of astonishment at the noise! was there ever such a foolish freak?" whereupon, taking out his beetle-back snuff-box, and giving it the traditional taps, he helped himself to such a prodigious pinch, by way of consolation, that he was obliged to retire precipitately behind the honeysuckles, and nearly cracked his left wing by a tremendous fit of sneezing. For let me tell you that the pollen, or dust of the snap-dragon, properly dried, makes very powerful fairy snuff, and I advise you not to try it.

The maids of honor had great difficulty to keep from bursting out laughing at the flight of the cross old prime minister; and the Queen pretended to arrange her bodice, made of the gossamer wing of the katydid, to hide a smile; but now, reclining on her throne, and gracefully fanning herself with her right wing, she indulged in a pleasant chat with her favorites, about Charley.

"Dear Cowslip!" she began, "I am so interested in this lovely boy. Will you assist me to watch over him, and keep away all harm from his loving brothers and sisters? Particularly we will protect them from the Kelpies, those hateful water-sprites, who would drag them down to their dark caves beneath the wave, if once the children ventured upon their realm. We will bid their little mother to warn them from getting into row-boats, or wading out into the river; the Kelpies shall content themselves with water-rats and tadpoles for this time, for too many lovely children have already been sacrificed to their cruel spite."

"Ah, beloved Queen!" answered Cowslip, "I, for one, will help you with heart and will; those damp, wretched little goblins shall not hurt a hair of their heads."

"And I, with might and main, will do your behest!" said the handsome young Ripple, twisting his mustache.

"And I, gracious Queen!" cried the pretty Lota, "for I dearly love children."

"And I, your Majesty," said Beeswing with Ripple and Firefly, "will order our regiment—the seventh—to encamp under the sedges on the shore, half to keep watch, while the other half sleep in the swaying branches of the water-willows."

"Give us something to do for the dear children, dearest Queen!" cried Dewdrop and Lilliebelle, two of the most famous beauties of the court, and, what is far better, as good as they were beautiful; "let us also help to make them happy."

"Well said, fair ladies and brave knights!" exclaimed the Queen; "with such true and loyal assistance, my labor of love will be most delightful. Come now—to the dance—while they are preparing supper."

She clapped her tiny hands thrice, and immediately the fairy band commenced playing the most enchanting dances; and the beautiful hollow was speedily filled with couples, whisking away in such rapid evolutions, that you would have thought they would soon tumble head over heels, from sheer dizziness; but as the dances were, after all, not very different from ours, I suppose the fairies were quite as well used to the rushing style; and, in good truth, as they were fairies, it seemed more in keeping, for these rapid, gracefully undulating movements, were the very poetry of motion.

Of course the elderly gentlemen fairies lounged among the honeysuckles, and talked politics, and quarrelled dreadfully about who should be the next President; for they took an immense interest in the affairs of us mortals; and the elderly lady fairies just as much, of course, pulled the characters of their best friends to pieces, without so much as a single regret; while the lovely young Queen, with half-a-dozen of her favorites, after dancing once, to set the fashion, ordered her pages to shake down a perfect shower of wild-rose leaves, on the edge of the hollow, of which they made soft and freshly perfumed couches; and there they listened to the exquisite music, and watched the dancers, and gaily devised plans for the comfort of our dear little friend, Lame Charley.

While they were thus conversing, a queer little elfin sped down one of the moonbeams, like a flash of summer lightning, and in an instant was on his knee before the Queen.

It was the fairy, Slyboots, the Queen's favorite messenger, and the most mischievous sprite in her dominions.

"Welcome, good Slyboots," cried the Queen; "by your bright eyes and unsoiled wings, methinks you must have fulfilled our commands faithfully. How fared you? and how did you find