class="narrative">“Playing with your mamma’s workbox things,” said Frances, “how very funny! You poor little thing, have you got nothing else to play with?”

She spoke as if she were several years older than Louisa, and this made Louisa still more vexed.

“Yes,” she answered, “of course I have got other things, but I like these. You can’t understand.” Frances smiled. “How funny you are!” she said again, “but never mind. Let us talk of something nice. Perhaps you would like to hear what things I have got to play with. I have a room all for myself, filled with toys. I have got a large doll-house, as tall as myself, with eight rooms; and I have sixteen dolls of different kinds. They were mostly birthday presents. But I am getting too big to care for them now. My birthday was last week. What do you think papa gave me? Something so beautiful that I had wanted for such a long time. I don’t think you could guess.”

In spite of herself Louisa was becoming interested. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said; “perhaps it was a book full of stories.”

Frances shook her head. “O no,” she answered, “it wasn’t. That would be nothing particular, and my present was something particular, very particular indeed. Well, you can’t guess, so I’ll tell you—it was a Princess’s dress; a real dress you know; a dress that I can put on and wear.”

“A Princess’s dress!” repeated Louisa, opening her eyes.

“Yes, to be sure,” said Frances. “I call it a Princess’s dress, because it is copied from one the Princess Fair Star wore at the pantomime last Christmas. It was there I saw it, and I have teased papa ever since till he got it for me. And it is so beautiful; quite beautiful enough for a queen for that matter. My papa often calls me his queen, sometimes he says his golden-haired queen. Does yours?”

“No,” said Louisa sadly; “my papa sometimes calls me his pet, and sometimes he calls me ‘old woman,’ but he never says I am his queen. I suppose I am not pretty enough.”

“I don’t know,” said Frances, consideringly, “I don’t think you’re ugly exactly. Perhaps if you asked your papa to get you a Princess’s dress—”

“He wouldn’t,” said Louisa decidedly, “I know he wouldn’t. It would not be the least use asking him. Tell me more about yours—what is it like, and does it make you feel like a real princess when you have it on?”

“I suppose it makes me look like one,” replied Frances complacently, “and as for feeling, why one can always fancy, you know.”

“Fancying isn’t enough,” said Louisa. “I know I should dreadfully like to be a princess or a queen. It is the first thing I would ask a fairy. Perhaps you don’t wish it so much because every one pets you so, and thinks you so pretty. Has your dress got silver and gold on it?”

“O yes, at least it has silver—silver spots,” began Frances eagerly, but just then her mamma turned to tell her that they must go. “The little people have made friends very quickly after all, you see,” she said to Louisa’s mamma. “Some day you must really bring Louisa to see Frances—it has been such an old promise.”

“It is not often I can leave home for a whole day,” said Louisa’s mamma; “and then, dear, you must remember not having a carriage makes a difference.”

Louisa’s cheeks grew red. She felt very vexed with her mamma for telling Mrs Gordon they had no carriage, but of course she did not venture to say anything, so no one noticed her. She was not sorry when Mrs Gordon and Frances said good-bye and went away.

That same evening, a little before bed-time, Louisa happened to be again in the drawing-room alone with her mother.

“Louisa,” said her mother, who was sewing at the table, “you did not leave my workbox as neat as usual this morning. I suppose it was because you were interrupted by Frances Gordon. Come here, dear, and take the box and put it on a chair near the fire and arrange it rightly. Here is a whole collection of reels rolling about. Put them all in their places.”

Louisa did as she was told, but without speaking. Indeed she had been very silent all day, but her mother had been occupied with other things and had not noticed her particularly. Louisa quietly put the reels into their places, giving the most comfortable corners to her favourites as usual, and huddling some of the others together rather unceremoniously. Then she sat down on the hearth-rug, and began to think of what Frances Gordon had said to her, and to wish all sorts of not very wise things. She felt herself at last growing drowsy, so she leant her little round head on the chair beside her, and was almost asleep, when she heard her mother say, “Louisa, my dear, you are getting sleepy, you must really go to bed.”

“Yes, mamma,” she said, or intended to say, but the words sounded faint and dreamlike, and before they were fully pronounced she was fairly asleep!

She remembered nothing more for what seemed a very long time—then to her surprise she found herself already undressed and in her own little bed! “Nurse must have carried me upstairs and undressed me,” she thought, and she opened her eyes very wide to see if it was still the middle of the night. No, surely it could not be; the room was quite light, yet where was the light coming from? It was not coming in at the window—there was no window to be seen; the curtains were drawn across, and no tiny chink even was visible; there was no lamp or candle in the room,—the light was simply there, but where it came from Louisa could not discover. She got tired of wondering about it at last, and was composing herself to sleep again, when suddenly a small but very clear voice called her by name. “Louisa, Louisa,” it said. She did not feel at all frightened. She half raised herself in bed and exclaimed, “Who is speaking to me? what do you want?”

“Louisa, Louisa,” the voice repeated, “would you like to be a queen?”

“Very much indeed, thank you,” Louisa replied promptly.

“Then rub your eyes and look about you,” said the voice.

Louisa rubbed her eyes and looked about her to some purpose, for what do you think she saw? All the white counterpane of her little bed was covered with tiny figures, of various sizes, from one inch to three or four in height. They were hopping, and dancing, and twirling themselves about in every imaginable way, like nothing anybody ever saw before, or since, or ever will again.

“Fairies!” thought Louisa at once, and without any feeling of overwhelming surprise, for, like most children, she had always been hoping, and indeed half expecting, that some day an adventure of this kind would fall to her share.

“Yes, fairies,” said the same voice as before, which seemed to hear her thoughts as distinctly as if she had spoken them; “but what kind of fairies? Look at us again, Louisa.”

Louisa opened her eyes wider and stared harder. There were all kinds of fairies, gentlemen and ladies, little and big; but as she looked she saw that every one of them, without exception, wore a curious sort of round stiff jacket, more like a little barrel than anything else. It gave them a queer high-shouldered look, very like the little figures of