I.   THE QUEEN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN FAERIES.

ONCE upon a time there was a King and Queen who reigned over a most beautiful country. They were very rich and very happy, and lived in a most gorgeous palace, the grand gardens of which sloped down to the blue sea, on which sailed many richly-laden ships, carrying merchandise to the capital city of the kingdom.

The palace was built of silver and ivory, and adorned with pale blue velvet hangings, upon which were painted the most exquisite pictures in the world. It stood on a high green hill, and far below lay the immense city of Buss, with its wide streets, many towers, and glittering fountains. As the King and Queen looked down from their beautiful castle on to the mighty city and great green plains which surrounded it, they ought to have been happy, but, curious to say, they were not. They had everything in the world to make them happy except one thing, and that one thing they longed for ardently, the more so because they did not see any chance of obtaining it.

“Ah, if I only had a child!” sighed the Queen.

“Yes; a little boy,” said the King.

“Or a little girl,” retorted the Queen. “Don’t you know any faeries, my dear, who would gratify our one desire?”

“No,” replied the King, shaking his head sadly. “My great-grandfather was the last person who ever saw a faery; no one has ever seen one since.”

“I don’t believe they exist,” said the Queen angrily.

“Oh yes, they do,” observed her husband. “This palace is said to have been built by faery hands.”

“I don’t believe they exist,” declared the Queen again. “If they did, they would surely help me by giving me a little girl or boy. What’s the good of faeries if they don’t help you?”

“I wish they would help me,” sighed his Majesty; “all my subjects are getting so unruly that I don’t know but what there will be a revolution, and they’ll put some one else on the throne.”

“Who else could they find?” asked the Queen curiously.

“Oh, I’m not certain of that,” replied the King. “You see, my grandfather, who was the first of our dynasty, ascended the throne by the help of the faeries, and the king who was deposed vanished, but they say some of his descendants live there;” and he pointed downward to the city.

“And there they will stay,” said the Queen angrily. “I don’t believe a word of it. Faeries indeed! they don’t exist.”

“But they do,” persisted the King.

“Pooh!” replied her Majesty. “Pooh!”

Now, when the Queen said “Pooh!” her husband knew it was no use talking any more, so he retired to his cabinet to look over some petitions from starving people, while the Queen went down with the ladies-in-waiting to walk in the garden.

It was really a delightful garden, filled with the most wonderful flowers. There were great beds of scented carnations, glowing with bright colours, red and white foxgloves, in whose deep bells the faeries were said to hide, masses of snowy white lilies, and a great mixture of marigolds, hollyhocks, sweet-williams, daisies, buttercups, and dahlias, which made the whole ground look like a brightly-coloured carpet. And as for the roses—oh, what a quantity of charming roses there were growing there! Red roses, varying in colour from a deep scarlet to a pale pink; white roses looking like snowflakes; yellow roses that glittered like gold, and faintly-tinted tea-roses that perfumed the still air with their sweet odours. Oh, it was really a famous garden, and bloomed all the year round, for the kingdom was situated in the region of perpetual summer, where snow never fell and frost never came.

The Queen, whose name was Flora, wandered disconsolately about the garden, quite discontented with the beautiful flowers, because she could not obtain the wish of her heart. The ladies-in-waiting began to pluck flowers in order to adorn the royal dinner-table, and Queen Flora walked on alone towards a great white rose tree that was covered with blossoms. As she stood looking at it, she suddenly heard a tiny laugh, and a great white rose unfolded its petals, showing a golden heart, and also a dainty little faery dressed in delicate green leaves, with a crown of little white rosebuds, and a wand made of a blade of grass. When the Queen saw her, she was much astonished, because she did not believe in faeries, but, now she really saw one, she had to believe her own eyes.

“I am called Rosina,” said the faery in a sweet, low voice, “and I heard you say you did not believe faeries existed; now you see they do, because I am a faery.”

“Yes, you must be a faery,” replied the Queen, clasping her hands, “because no human being could be so small.”

“Oh, I can be any size I please,” said the Faery Rosina, with a laugh, and, stepping down from the rose, she alighted on the ground, and instantly grew as tall as the Queen herself.

“Oh, you are a real, real faery!” cried Flora in delight. “But why do the faeries not appear now?”

“Because the land is so badly governed,” said Rosina in a severe tone. “Yourself and the King only think of luxury, and never of assisting the poor people; but I am going to cure you both of such neglect.”

“But how?” asked the Queen, trembling.

“By giving you your wish,” said the faery, plucking a white rosebud off the tree. “Lay this bud beside your bed to-night, and at the dawn of day it will change into a beautiful little baby Princess, which is what you want.”

“Oh yes, yes!” cried the Queen; “I do want a Princess.”

“Every night at sundown,” said the faery slowly, “the Princess will once more change into a flower, and become a human being again at sunrise.”

“But will she change like this all her life?” asked the Queen, in great dismay, for she did not like to have such a curious baby.

“She will be a Princess by day and a rosebud by night,” said Rosina, smiling, “until she marries the great-grandson of the King whom your husband’s grandfather deposed from the throne.”

“And where is this Prince to be found?” demanded the Queen breathlessly. “I’ll marry my Princess to him at once.”

“You can’t do that,” said the faery, shaking her head. “The exiled Prince does not know who he is, and the Princess herself will have to tell him he is of the royal blood. When she does that, and you marry them to one another, the spell will be removed, and she will be a Princess both by day and by night.”

“I don’t see how she’s ever going to find this lost Prince!” said the Queen angrily. “I shall certainly not let my child run about the world looking for him.”

“Fate is stronger than you are,” replied the faery, “and you will see what you will see.” So saying, she suddenly disappeared, and, as the white rose slowly curled up its petals, the Queen knew the Faery Rosina was inside.

The ladies-in-waiting, who had seen the Queen talking to a strange lady, dared not approach before, but now they saw their royal mistress was alone, they ventured to come near, and one of them offered to take the white rosebud which the Queen held.

“Oh no!” cried Flora, hastily drawing back her hand; “I am going to keep this rosebud. It is my”—

She was going to say Princess, but, thinking it wiser to keep her own counsel, she held her tongue, and, on returning to the palace, told no one but the King about the faery’s promise. The King laughed at her, and said he did not believe her story—that she must be dreaming; but the Queen persisted in her tale, that the rosebud would become a Princess, and placed it on a velvet cushion by the side of her bed.

Next morning, at the first break of day, she sprang up out of bed and hurried to look at the cushion, but there lay the rosebud a rosebud still, and not a Princess, as she thought it would be.

Queen Flora was very much disappointed, particularly as the King laughed at her folly for believing she had seen a faery, when suddenly a shaft of golden sunlight shone through the window right on to the cushion, and in an instant, instead of the flower there appeared a beautiful naked baby, who laughed and crowed gaily.

The Queen was nearly mad with joy, and took the baby up in her arms to show the King, who was equally delighted.

“You see there are faeries after all,” he said to the Queen.

“I always thought so,” replied the Queen.

“Oh, my dear!” said the King, who was quite shocked at such a story.

“Pooh!” answered Queen Flora, tossing the baby up in her arms, and this ended the conversation.