Chapter III: Part 3

So he ran quickly to a high, white place in the midst of the town, where they were making ready to erect the throne of the king of the carnival, and on that he stood and cried:--

“Hear me--hear me! The world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”

Now, if those about the carnival throne had only said: “What is that to us? Go away!” Peter would have been warned. But they only nodded, and they said kindly: “Yes, so it is--and we mean to help presently. Come and help us first!” And one of the revellers, seeing Peter, how little he was, picked him up and held him at arm’s length and cried:--

“Lo, now, this little lad. He is no bigger than a trumpet....”

(That was what the king had said, and it pleased Peter to hear it said again.)

“... Let us take him,” the revellers went on, “and _have_ him for a trumpet. And take him with us in our great procession. What think ye?”

“And may I cry out what message I please?” little Peter asked eagerly.

“Surely,” answered all the revellers, gayly. “What is that to us, so that you come with us?”

They picked him up and tossed him on their shoulders--for he was of about a brazen trumpet’s weight, no more;--and Peter clapped his hands for joy, for he was a boy and he loved to think that he would be a part of that gorgeous procession. And they took him away to the great tent on the city green where everyone was dressing for the carnival.

Peter never had seen anything so strange and wonderful as what was within that tent. In it everything and everybody had just been or was just going to be something or somebody else. Not only had the gay garments piled on the floor just been sheep’s and silkworm’s coats, not only had the colours laid upon them just been roots and stems and herb-leaves, not only had the staves been tree’s boughs and elephant’s tusks, but the very coal burning in the braziers and the oil in the torches had once been sunshine, and the very flames had been air, and before that water, and so on. But, most of all, the people showed what they had been, for in any merry-making the kinds of animals in folk can_not_ be covered up; and it was a regular menagerie.

They took little Peter and dressed him like a trumpet. They thrust both his legs into one long cloth-of-gold stocking, and he held his arms tightly at his sides while they wound his little body in ruffles of gold-coloured silk, growing broader and broader into a full-gathered ruff from which his laughing face peeped out. And he was so slender and graceful that you could hardly have told him from a real, true, golden trumpet.

Then the procession was ready to start, all lined up in the great tent. And the heralds and the music all burst out at once as the green curtain of the tent was drawn aside, and the long, glittering line began to move. Little heralds, darting about for all the world like squirrels and chipmunks; a great elephant of a master of ceremonies, bellowing out the order of the day as if he had been presiding over the jungle; a group of men high in the town’s confidence, whose spots proclaimed them once to have been leopards, and other things; long, lithe harlequins descended from serpents; little, fat clowns still showing the magpie; prominent citizens, unable as yet to conceal the fox and the wolf in their faces; the mayor of the town, revealing the chameleon in his blood; little donkey men; and a fine old gentleman or two made like eagles--all of them getting done into men as quickly as possible. In the midst rode the king of the carnival, who had evidently not long since been a lion, and that no doubt was why they picked him out. He rode on a golden car from which sprays of green sprang out to reach from side to side of the broad street. And at his lips, held like a trumpet, he carried little Peter, one hand on Peter’s feet set to the kingly lips, and the other stretched out to Peter’s breast.

Then Peter lifted up his shrill little voice and shouted loud his message:--

“_The world is beginning! The world is beginning! The world is beginning! You must go and help the king. You must go-o-o and help the king!_”

But just as he cried that, the carnival band struck into a merry march, and all the heralds were calling, and the people were shouting, and Peter’s little voice did not reach very far.

“Shout again!” bade the king of the carnival, who did not care in the least what Peter said, so long only as he acted like a trumpet.

So Peter shouted again--shouted his very best. He shouted as loudly as he did at play, as loudly as when he swam and raced in the water, as loudly as any boy could shout. But it seemed to him that his voice carried hardly farther than the little chipmunk-and-squirrel heralds before him, and that nobody heard him.

Still, it was all such fun! The glitter of the procession, the eagerness of the people, the lilt and rhythm of the music. And fun over all was it to be carried by the carnival king himself, high above everyone and dressed like a golden trumpet. Surely, surely no boy ever had more fun than that! Surely, surely it was no great marvel that after a little time, so loud was the clamour and so fast the excitement, that Peter stopped crying his message, and merely watched and laughed and delighted with the rest.

Up and down through the thronged streets they went, that great, glittering procession, winding its mile or more of spangles and gilding and gay dress and animals richly caparisoned. Everywhere the crowded walks and windows and balconies sent cheers into the air, everywhere flowers were thrown and messages tossed and melody flooded. And wherever that long line passed, everyone noted the king’s trumpet and pointed it out and clapped hands and tried to throw upon it garlands. And there was so much to see, and so much excitement there was in the hour, that at last little Peter did not even think of his message, and only jested and made merry. For it was the most wonderful game that ever he had played.

“How now, my little trumpeter?” the king of the carnival would say sometimes, when he rested his arms and held Peter at his side.

“Oh, _well_, your majesty!” Peter would cry, laughing up at him.

“This is all a fine game and nothing more,” the king of the carnival would tell him. “Is this not so?”

Then he would toss the boy on high again, away above the golden car, and Peter would cry out with the delight of it. And though there were no wings and no great brightness in the air, yet the hour was golden and joy was abroad like a person.

Presently, a band of mountebanks, dressed like ploughmen and harvesters, came tumbling and racing by the procession, and calling to everyone to come to a corn husking on the city green.

“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks--husks--husks!” they cried.

But there was such a tumult that no one could well hear what they said, and presently they appealed to the carnival king to tell the people.

“Nay, O king, they hear us not for the noise of thy passing,” said they. “Prithee tell the people what we would say.”

“Tell the people, my little trumpeter!” cried the king, and lifted Peter to his lips.

And Peter shouted out with all his might.

“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks--husks--husks!”

“Bravely done!” called the mountebanks, in delight, and ran alongside the car, leaping and tumbling and grotesquely showing their delight. “Bravely done! Tell the people--bid the people come!”

So Peter called again, and yet again, at the full strength of his little voice. And it seemed to him that the people surely listened, and it was a delight and a flattery to be the one voice in the great procession, save only the music’s voice.

At last, for one moment it chanced that the bands ceased altogether their playing, so that there was an instant of almost silence.

“_Husks, husks, husks!_” he cried, with all his might.

And as he did that, thin and clear through the silence, vexed somewhat by the voices of the people,--now barks, now whines, now bellows, now words,--Peter caught a little wandering melody, as though a bird’s singing were turning into words:--

“_Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,
Here one, there one, natal to its hour_....”

and in the midst of that motley throng, Peter, looking down, saw the poet whom he had left on the hill-top, now wandering alone and singing his message to his lute.

“Oh, the king! Oh, _my_ king!” cried little Peter, as if he had had a great wound.

“What now, my little trumpeter?” asked the carnival king.

“Not you--_not_ you!” cried Peter. “Oh, set me down,--set me down. Oh, what have I done?”

“How _now_, little Trumpet?” cried the carnival king. But Peter, instead of stretching out his little body, slim and trumpet-graceful, turned and fell at the king’s feet in the car and slipped from his grasp and scrambled through the branching green and reached the street.

There, in the wonder and then the mockery of the people, he began struggling to free himself from the ruffles of cloth-of-gold about his body. Some laughed, some ran from him as if he were mad, and some, wishing for themselves the golden ruffles, helped him to pull them off and to strip down the clinging golden stocking that bound his limbs. And then, being close to the city gates, little Peter ran, all naked as he was, without the gates and on to the empty road. And he ran sobbing out his heart:--

“Oh, my king! I would have told them that the world is beginning--but, instead I have told them only to get them husks!”

Now the poet, who had seen it all--and who understood--ceased his song and made his way as quickly as might be for the press of the people, and ran after Peter, and fared along the road beside him, trying to comfort him. But the little lad might not be comforted, and he only cried out again:--

“The king--the king! I would have given them his message--and I bade them only to get them husks!”

So the poet--who understood--said no word at all, but he shielded Peter with his mantle; and then he took his lute and walked beside the little lad, singing.

They had gone but a short distance when they reached the top of a hill, where the sun shone with exceeding brightness, and the poet noted that the light fell almost like little wings. Peter saw none of this, for his hands were still covering his face. But he heard the poet’s singing interrupted by a voice. The voice was uneven--like a bark or a whine that is turning into words--but yet its words were clear and unmistakable. And they were:--

“_Sirs, the world is beginning. You must go and help the king._”

Peter looked up and he saw the man who had spoken, a man twisted and ragged, but who smiled down into the little boy’s face so gently that, for a moment, Peter did not know him; and then he recognized that beggar to whom, on that night long ago, he had given food and the message.

“Ay, friend!” the poet was answering him ringingly, “and we go!”

The beggar hurried on, and the poet touched Peter’s hand.

“Nay, now, little Peter,” he said, “grieve not your heart too much. For you it was who told the beggar the message--from the top of the hill I heard--and I saw you give him food. Can you tell any man without some good coming true of the tidings? Then it may well be that there are those in the town to whom you told the king’s message who will remember, too. Go we forth together to try again!”

Peter looked down the long highway, stretching between the mysterious green, where shrubs changed to animals in so little a space; and then he looked away to the king’s kingdom and saw how it was not finished--because the world had just stopped being nothing and was beginning to be something--and he looked back towards the city where, as at the court, men had not yet done being animals. Everything was changing, as if nothing were meant to be merely what it is. And everything was in savage angles and wild lines. The world was beginning. The people _must_ be told to go and help the king.

“Go we forth together to try again,” the poet repeated.

He touched his lute, and its melody slipped into the sunshine.

“_Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,
You shall be a flower._”

Then Peter stretched out his arms, and his whole slender little body became like one trumpet voice, and that voice strong and clear to reach round the world itself.

“I try once again!” he answered. “The world is beginning. _I must go and help the king._”

VI

MY LADY OF THE APPLE TREE

Our lawn was nine apple trees large. There were none in front, where only Evergreens grew, and two silver Lombardy poplars, heaven-tall. The apple trees began with the Cooking-apple tree by the side porch. This was, of course, no true tree except in apple-blossom time, and at other times hardly counted. The length of twenty jumping ropes--they call them skipping ropes now, but we never called them so--laid one after another along the path would have brought one to the second tree, the Eating-apple tree, whose fruit was red without and pink-white within. To this day I do not know what kind of apples those were, whether Duchess, Gilliflower, Russet, Sweet, or Snow. But after all, these only name the body of the apple, as Jasper or Edith names the body of you. The soul of you, like the real sense of Apple, lives nameless all its days. Sometime we must play the game of giving us a secret name--the Pathfinder, the Lamplighter, the Starseeker, and so on. But colours and flavours are harder to name and must wait longer than we.

... Under this Nameless tree, then, the swing hung, and to sit in the swing and have one’s head touch apple-blossoms, and mind, not touch them with one’s foot, was precisely like having one’s swing knotted to the sky, so that one might rise in rhythm, head and toe, up among the living stars. I can think of no difference worth the mentioning, so high it seemed. And if one does not know what rhythm is, one has only to say it over: Spring, Summer, apple-blossom, apple; new moon, old moon, running river, echo--and then one will know.

“I would pick some,” said Mother, looking up at the apple-blossoms, “if I only knew which ones will never be apples.”

So some of the blossoms would never be apples! Which ones? _And why?_

“Why will some be apples and some others never be apples?” I inquired.

But Mother was singing and swinging me, and she did not tell.

“Why will you be apples and you not be apples, and me not know which, and you not know which?” I said to the apple-blossoms when next my head touched them. Of course, you never really speak to things with your throat voice, but you think it at them with your head voice. Perhaps that is the way they answer, and that is why one does not always hear what they say....

The apple-blossoms did not say anything that I could hear. The stillness of things never ceased to surprise me. It would have been far less wonderful to me if the apple-blossoms and the Lombardy poplars and my new shoes had answered me sometimes than that they always kept their unfriendly silence. One’s new shoes _look_ so friendly, with their winking button eyes and their placid noses! And yet they act as cross about answering as do some little boys who move into the neighbourhood.

... Indeed, if one comes to think of it, one’s shoes are rather like the sturdy little boys among one’s clothes. One’s slippers are more like little girls, all straps and bows and tiptoes. Then one’s aprons must be the babies, long and white and dainty. And one’s frocks and suits--that is to say, one’s _new_ frocks and suits--are the ladies and gentlemen, important and elegant; and one’s everyday things are the men and women, neither important nor elegant, but best of all; and one’s oldest garments are the witches, shapeless and sad and haunted. This leaves ribbons and sashes and beads to be fairies--both good and bad.

The silence of the Nameless tree was to lift a little that very day. When Mother had gone in the house,--something seemed always to be pulling at Mother to be back in the house as, in the house, something always pulled at me to be back out-of-doors,--I remember that I was twisting the rope and then lying back over the board, head down, for the untwisting. And while my head was whirling and my feet were guiding, I looked up at the tree and saw it as I had never seen it before: soft falling skirts of white with lacy edges and flowery patterns, drooping and billowing all about a pedestal, which was the tree trunk, and up-tapering at the top like a waist--why, the tree was a lady! Leaning in the air there above the branches, surely I could see her beautiful shoulders and her white arms, her calm face and her bright hair against the blue. She had risen out of the trunk at the tree’s blossoming and was waiting for someone to greet her.

I struggled out of the swing and scrambled, breathless, back from the tree and looked where she should be. Already I knew her. Nearly, I knew the things that she would say to me--sometimes now I know the things that she would have said if we had not been interrupted.

The interruption came from four girls who lived, as I thought, outside my world,--for those were the little days when I did not yet know that this cannot be. They were the Eversley sisters, in full-skirted, figured calico, and they all had large, chapped hands and wide teeth and stout shoes. For a year they had been wont to pass our house on the way to the public school, but they had spoken to me no more than if I had been invisible--until the day when I had first entered school. After that, it was as if I had been born into their air, or thrown in the same cage, or had somehow become one of them. And I was in terror of them.

“Come ’ere once!” they commanded, their voices falling like sharp pebbles about the Apple-blossom lady and me.

Obediently I ran to the front fence, though my throat felt sick when I saw them coming. “Have an apple core? Give us some of them flowers. Shut your eyes so’s you’ll look just like you was dead.” These were the things that they always said. Something kept telling me that I ought not to tell them about my lady, but I was always wanting to win their approval and to let them know that I was really more one of them than they thought. So I disobeyed, and I told them. Mysteriously, breathlessly I led them back to the tree; and feeling all the time that I was not keeping faith, I pointed her out to them. I showed them just where to look, beginning with the skirts, which surely anybody could see.... I used often to dream that a crowd of apish, impish little folk was making fun of me, and that afternoon I lived it, standing out alone against those four who fell to instant jeering. If they had stooped and put their hands on their knees and hopped about making faces, it would have been no more horrible to me than their laughter. It held for me all the sense of bad dreams, and then of waking alone, in the middle of the night. The worst was that I could find no words to make them know. I could only keep saying, “She is there, she is there, she is there.” By some means I managed not to cry, not even when they each broke a great branch of blossoms from the Eating-apple tree and ran away, flat-footed, down the path; not indeed until the gate had slammed and I turned back to the tree and saw that my lady had gone.

There was no doubt about it. Here were no longer soft skirts, but only flowery branches where the sunlight thickened and the bees drowsed. My lady was gone. Try as I might, I could not bring her back. So she had been mocking me too! Otherwise, why had she let me see her so that I should be laughed at, and then herself vanished? Yet, even then, I remember that I did not doubt her, or for a moment cease to believe that she was really there; only I felt a kind of shame that I could see her, and that the others could not see her. I had felt the same kind of shame before, never when I was alone, but always when I was with people. We played together well enough,--Pom, pom, pullaway, Minny-minny motion, Crack-the-whip, London Bridge, and the rest, save that I could not run as fast as nearly everybody. But the minute we stopped playing and _talked_, then I was always saying something so that the same kind of shame came over me.

I saw Delia crossing the street. In one hand she held two cookies which she was biting down sandwich-wise, and in the other hand two cookies, as yet unbitten. The latter she shook at me.

“I knew I’d see you,” she called resentfully. “I says I’d give ’em to you if I saw you, and if I didn’t see you--”

She left it unfinished at a point which gave no doubt as to whose cookies they might have been had I not been offensively about. But the cookies were fresh, and I felt no false delicacy. However, after deliberation, I ate my own, one at a time, rejecting the sandwich method.

“It lasts them longest,” I explained.

“The other way they bite thicker,” Delia contended.

“Your teeth don’t taste,” I objected scientifically.

Delia opened her eyes. “Why, they do too!” she cried.

I considered. I had always had great respect for the strange chorus of my teeth, and I was perfectly ready to regard them as having independent powers.

“Oh, not when you eat tipsy-toes like that,” said Delia, scornfully. “Lemme show you....” She leaned for my cooky, her own being gone. I ran shamelessly down the path toward the swing, and by the time the swing was reached I had frankly abandoned serial bites.

I sat on the grass, giving Delia the swing as a peace-offering. She took it, as a matter of course, and did not scruple to press her advantage.

“Don’t you want to swing me?” she said.

I particularly disliked being asked in that way to do things. Grown-ups were always doing it, and what could be more absurd: “Don’t you want to pick up your things now?” “Don’t you want to let auntie have that chair?” “Don’t you want to take this over to Mrs. Rodman?” The form of the query always struck me as quite shameless. I truthfully shook my head.

“I’m company,” Delia intimated.

“When you’re over to my house, I have to let you swing because you’re company,” I said speculatively, “and when I’m over to your house, I have to let you swing because it’s your swing.”

“I don’t care about being company,” said Delia, loftily, and started home.

“I’ll swing you. I was only fooling!” I said, scrambling up.

It worked--as Delia knew it would and always did work. All the same, as I pushed Delia, with my eyes on the blue-check gingham strap buttoned across the back of her apron, I reflected on the truth and its parallels: How, when Delia came to see me, I had to “pick up” the playthings and set in order store or ship or den or cave or county fair or whatnot because Delia had to go home early; and when I was over to Delia’s, I had to help put things away because they were hers and she had got them out.

Low-swing, high-swing, now-I’m-going-to-run-under-swing--I gave them all to Delia and sank on the grass to watch the old cat die. As it died, Delia suddenly twisted the rope and then dropped back and lay across the board and loosed her hands. I never dared “let go,” as we said, but Delia did and lay whirling, her hair falling out like a sun’s rays, and her eyes shut.

I watched her, fascinated. If she opened her eyes, I knew how the picket fence would swim for her, no longer a line but a circle. Then I remembered what I had seen in the tree when I was twisting, and I looked back....

There she was! Quite as I had fleetingly seen her, with lacy skirts and vague, sweeping sleeves and bending line of shoulder, my Lady of the Tree was there again. I looked at her breathlessly, unsurprised at the gracious movement of her, so skilfully concealed by the disguises of the wind. Oh, was she there all the time, or only in apple-blossom time? Would she be there not only in white Spring but in green Summer and yellow Fall--why, perhaps all those times came only because she changed her gown. Perhaps night came only because she put on something dusky, made of veils. Maybe the stars that I had thought looked to be caught in the branches were the jewels in her hair. And the wind might be her voice! I listened with all my might. What if she should tell me her name ... and know my name!...

“Seventeen un-twists,” announced Delia. “Did you ever get that many out of such a little stingy swing as you gave me?”

I did not question the desirability of telling Delia. The four Eversley girls had been barbarians (so I thought). Delia I had known always. To be sure, she had sometimes failed me, but these times were not real. My eyes were on the tree, and Delia came curiously toward me.

“Bird?” she whispered.

I shook my head and beckoned her. Still looking at my lady, I drew Delia down beside me, brought her head close to mine.

“Look,” I said, “her skirt is all branches--and her face is turned the other way. See her?”

Delia looked faithfully. She scanned the tree long and impartially.

“See her? See her?” I insisted, under the impression that I was defining her. “It’s a lady,” I breathed it finally.

“Oh,” said Delia, “you mean that side of the tree is the shape of one. Yes, it is--kind of. I’m going home. We got chocolate layer cake for supper. Good-bye. Last tag.”

I turned to Delia for a second. When she went, I looked back for my lady--but she had gone. Only--now I did not try to bring her back. Neither did I doubt her, even then. But there came back a certain loneliness that I had felt before, only never so much as now. Why was it that the others could not see?

I lay face downward in the grass under the tree. There were other things like this lady that I had been conscious of, which nobody else seemed to care about. Sometimes I had tried to tell. More often I had instinctively kept still. Now slowly I thought that I understood: I was different. Different from the whole world. Did I not remember how, when I walked on the street, groups of children would sometimes whisper: “There she is--there she is!” Or, “Here she comes!” I had thought, poor child, that this would be because my hair was long, like little Eva’s in the only play that most of us had seen. But now I thought I knew what they had known and I had not known: That I was different.

I dropped my face in the crook of my arm and cried--silently, because to cry aloud seemed always to have about it a kind of nakedness; but I cried sorely, pantingly, with aching throat, and tried to think it out.

What was this difference? I had heard them say in the house that my head was large, my hair too long to let me be healthy; and the four Eversleys always wanted me to shut my eyes so that I should look dead. But it was something other than these. Maybe--I shall never forget the grip of that fear--maybe I was not human. Maybe I was Adopted. I had no clear idea what Adopted meant, but my impression was that it meant not to have been born at all. That was it. I was like the apple-blossoms that would never be apples. I was just a Pretend little girl, a kind of secret one, somebody who could never, never be the same as the rest.

I turned from that deep afternoon and ran for the wood-pile where I had a hiding-place. Down the path I met Mother and clung to her.

“Mother, Mother!” I sobbed. “Am I adopted?”

“No, dear,” she said seriously. “You are mine. What is it?”

“Promise me I’m not!” I begged.

“I promise,” she said. “Who has been talking to you? You little lamb, come in the house,” she added. “You’re tired out, playing.”

I went with her. But the moment had entered me. I was not like the rest. I said it over, and every time it hurt. There is no more passionate believer in democracy than a child.

Across the street Delia was sitting on the gate-post, ostentatiously eating chocolate layer cake, and with her free hand twisting into a curl the end of her short braid. Between us there seemed to have revealed itself a gulf, life-wide. Had Delia always known about me? Did the Rodman girls know? And Calista? The four Eversleys must know--this was why they laughed so.... But I remember how, most of all, I hoped that Mary Elizabeth did not know--yet.

From that day I faced the truth: I was different. I was somehow not really-truly. And it seemed to me that nothing could ever be done about it.

VII

THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA

That night I could not go to sleep with the knowledge. If only I, as I am now, might have sat on the edge of the bed and told a story to me as I was then! I am always wishing that we two might have known each other--I as I am now and I as I was then. We should have been so much more interested in each other than anybody else could ever be. I can picture us looking curiously at each other through the dark, and each would have wished to be the other--how hard we would have wished that. But neither of us would have got it, as sometimes happens with wishes.

Looking back on that night, and knowing how much I wanted to be like the rest, I think this would be the story that I, as I am now, would have told that Little Me.

* * * * *

Once upon a time to the fairy king and queen there was born a little daughter. And the king, being a modern fairy, determined to invite to the christening of his daughter twelve mortals--a thing never before countenanced in fairy ceremony. And of course all unreal people are always very particular about their ceremonies being _just_ so.

It was a delicate and difficult task to make out that mortal invitation list, for it was very hard to find in the world twelve human beings who, at a fairy party, would exactly fit in. After long thought and consultation with all his ministers and councillors, the king made out the following list:--

A child; a poet; a scientist; a carpenter; a prophet; an artist; an artisan; a gardener; a philosopher; a woman who was also a mother; a man who was also a father; and a day labourer.

“Do you think that will do _at all_?” the fairy king asked the fairy queen, tossing over the list.

“Well, dear,” she replied, “it’s probably the best you can do. You know what people are.” She hesitated a mere breath--a fairy’s breath--and added: “I do wonder a little, though, just _why_ the day labourer.”

“My dear,” said the king, “some day you will understand that, and many other things as well.”

The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapestries as splendid as vistas curtaining the distance. And the music was like the music of All-night, all done at once.

To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as something else--for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings prettily painted. One represented a Rose, and she could hardly be distinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light, whom nobody could recognize. One was a White Moth and one was a Thistle-down, and there were several fantastic toilettes, such as a great Tulle Bow, a Paper Doll, and an Hour-glass. As for the Human Beings present, they all came masked as themselves, as usual; and their names I cannot give you, though sometimes I see someone with dreaming eyes whom I think may possibly have been one of those twelve--for of course it must have made a difference in their looks ever afterward. It was a very brilliant assemblage indeed, and everyone was most intangible and elusive, which are fairy terms for well-behaved.

While the guests were waiting for the fairy baby princess to be brought in, they idled about, with that delightful going-to-be-ice-cream feeling which you have at any party in some form or another, only you must _never_ say so, and they exchanged the usual pleasant nothing-at-alls. It is curious how very like human nothings fairy nothings are.

For example:--

“There is a great deal of night about,” said the Butterfly Fairy with a little shiver. “If I were a truly butterfly, I should never be able to find my way home.”

“And there is such a fad for thunder-and-lightning this season,” added the Paper Doll Fairy, agreeably.

“Do you remember,” asked the White Moth Fairy, “the night that we all dressed as white moths and went to meet the moon? We flew until we were all in the moonlight, and then we knew that we had met her. I wonder why more people do not meet the moon-rise?”

“That reminds me,” said the Thistle-down Fairy, “of the day we all made up as snowflakes and went to find the Spring. Don’t you know how she surprised us, in the hollow of the lowland? And what a good talk we had? I wonder why more people do not go to meet the Spring?”

“A charming idea!” cried the Rose Fairy to the Light Fairy, and the Light Fairy shone softly upon her, precisely like an answer.

Then somebody observed that the wind that night was a pure soprano, and the guests amused themselves comparing wind-notes; how on some nights the wind is deep bass, like a man’s voice, raging through the world; and sometimes it is tenor, sweet, and singing only serenades; and sometimes it is all contralto and like a lullaby; and sometimes, but not often, it is like harp music played on the trees.

Suddenly the whole dark lifted, like a garment; and moonlight flooded the Vasty Hall. And as if they had filtered down the air with the light, the fairy christening party entered--not as we enter a room, by thresholds and steps, but the way that a thought comes in your head and you don’t know how it got there.

The christening party wore robes of colours that lie deep between the colours and may hardly be named. And, in a secret ceremony, such as attends the blooming of flowers, the fairy baby was christened Romancia. Then the fairies brought her many offerings; and these having been received and admired, a great hush fell on the whole assembly, for now the twelve Human Beings came forward with their gifts. And everyone, except, indeed, the princess herself, was wild with curiosity to see what they had brought.

No one left a card with any gift, but when the fairy king came to look them over afterward, he felt certain who had brought each one. The gifts were these: A little embroidered gown which should make everyone love the princess while she wore it; a gazing crystal which would enable the princess to see one hundred times as much as anybody else saw; certain sea secrets and sea spells; a lyre which played itself; a flask containing a draught which should keep the princess young; a vial of colours which hardly anyone ever sees; flowers and grasses and leaves which could be used almost like a dictionary to spell out other things; an assortment of wonderful happy fancies of every variety; a new rainbow; a box of picture cards of the world, every one of which should come true if one only went far enough; and a tapestry of the universe, wrapped around a brand-new idea in a box.

When these things had been graciously accepted by the king, there was a stir in the company, and sweeping into its midst came another Human Being, one who thought that she had every right to be invited to the christening, but who had not been invited. All the fairies shrank back, for it was an extraordinary-looking Human Being. She was tall and lithe and wore a sparkling gown, and her face had the look of many cities, and now it was like the painted cover of an empty box, and all the time it had the meaning only of those who never look at the stars, or walk in gardens, or think about others rather than themselves, or listen to hear what it is right for them to do. This kind of Human Being is one who not often has any good gift to give to anyone, and this the fairies knew.

The Vasty Hall became very quiet to see what she had brought, for no one understood what she could possibly have to bestow upon a baby. And without asking leave of the king or the queen, she bent over the child and clasped on her wrist the tiniest bracelet that was ever made in the world, and she snapped its lock as fast as the lock on a fetter, and held up the tiniest key that ever was wrought.

“The princess,” she cried, “shall seem _different from everyone else_. She shall seem like nobody who is or ever has been. As long as she wears her bracelet, this shall be true; and that she may never lose it, I shall hold her bracelet’s key. Hail to this little princess child, who shall seem like nobody in the world!”

Now, no one present was quite certain what this might mean, but the lady’s robe was so beautifully embroidered and sparkling, and her voice was such a thing of loops and curves, that nearly everyone accepted the gift as something fine after all, and the queen gave her her hand to kiss. But the king, who was a very wise fairy, said nothing at all, and merely bowed and eyed the bracelet, in deep thought.

His meditation was interrupted by a most awkward incident. In the excitement of the bestowal of gifts by the Human Beings, and in the confusion of the entrance of the thirteenth and uninvited Human Being, one of them all had been forgotten and had got himself shuffled well at the back of everyone. And now he came pressing forward in great embarrassment, to bring his gift. It was the day labourer, and several of the Human Beings drew hastily back as he approached the dais. But everyone fell still farther back in consternation when it was seen what he had brought. For on the delicate cobweb coverlet of the little princess’s bed, he cast a spadeful of earth.

“It’s all I’ve got,” the man said, “or I’d brought a better.”

The earth all but covered the little bed of the princess, and it was necessary to lift her from it, which the fairy queen did with her own hands, flashing a reproachful glance at her husband, the king. But when the party had trooped away for the dancing,--with the orchestra playing the way a Summer night would sound if it were to steep itself in music, so that it could only be heard and not seen,--then the king came quietly back to the christening chamber and ordered the spadeful of earth to be gathered up and put in a certain part of the palace garden.

And so (the Human Beings having gone home at once and forgotten that they had been present), when the music lessened to silence and the fairies stole from note to note and at last drifted away as invisibly as the hours leave a dial, they passed, in the palace garden, a great corner of the rich black earth which the day labourer had brought to the princess. And it was ready for seed sowing.

The Princess Romancia grew with the days and the years, and from the first it was easily to be seen that certainly she seemed different from everyone in the world. As a baby she began talking in her cradle without having been taught--not very plainly, to be sure, or so that anybody in particular excepting the fairy queen understood her--but still she talked. As a little girl she seemed always to be listening to things as if she understood them as well as she did people, or better. When she grew older, nobody knew quite how she differed, but everybody agreed that she seemed different. And this the princess knew better than anybody, and most of the time it made her hurt all over.

When the fairies played at thistle-down ball, the princess often played too, but she never felt really like one of them all. She felt that they were obliged to have her play with them because she was the princess, and not because they wanted her. When they played at hide-and-go-seek in a flower bed, somehow the others always hid together in the big flowers, and the princess hid alone in a tulip or a poppy. And whenever they whispered among themselves, she always fancied that they were whispering of her. She imagined herself often looked at with a smile or a shrug; she began to believe that she was not wanted but only endured because she was the princess, and she was certain that no one liked her for herself alone, because she was somehow so different. Little by little she grew silent, and refused to join in the games, and sat apart alone. Presently she began to give blunt answers and to take exception and even to disagree. And, of course, little by little the court began secretly to dislike her, and to cease to try to understand her, and they told one another that she was hopelessly different and that that was all that there was to be said about her.

But in spite of all this, the Princess Romancia was very beautiful, and the fame of her beauty went over the whole of fairyland. When enough years had gone by, fairy princes from this and that dominion began to come to the king’s palace to see her. But though they all admired the princess’s great beauty, many were of course repelled by her sharp answers and her constant suspicions.

But at last the news of the princess’s beauty and strangeness reached the farthest border of fairyland and came to the ears of the young Prince Hesperus. Now Prince Hesperus, who was the darling of his father’s court and beloved of everybody, was tired of everybody. “Every fairy is like every other fairy,” he was often heard saying wearily. “I do wish I could find somebody with a few new ways. One would think fairies were all cut from one pattern!” Therefore, when word came to him of the strange and beautiful Princess Romancia, who was believed to be different from everyone else in the world, you can imagine with what haste he made ready and set out for her father’s place.

Prince Hesperus arrived at the palace at twilight, when the king’s garden was wrapped in that shadow light which no one can step through, _if he looks_, without feeling somewhat like a fairy himself and glad to be one. He sent his servants on ahead, folded his wings, and proceeded on foot through the silent gardens. And in a little arbour made of fallen petals, renewed each day, he came on the Princess Romancia, asleep. He, of course, did not recognize her, but never, since for him the world began, had the prince seen anyone so beautiful.

His step roused her and she sprang to her feet. And as soon as he looked at her, Prince Hesperus found himself wanting to tell her of what he had just been thinking, and before he knew it he was doing so.

“I have just been thinking,” he said, “what a delightful pet a leaf-shadow would make, if one could catch it and tame it. I wonder if one could do it? Think how it would dance for one, all day long.”

The Princess Romancia stared a little.

“But when the sun went down,” she was surprised into saying, “the shadow would be dead.”

“Not at all,” the prince replied, “it would only be asleep. And it would never have to be fed, and it could live in one’s palace.”

“I would like such a pet,” said the princess, thoughtfully.

“If I may walk with you,” said the prince, “we will talk more about it.”

They walked together toward the palace and talked more about it, so that the Princess Romancia quite forgot to be more different than she was, and the prince forgot all about everything save his companion. And he saw about her all the gifts of tenderness and vision and magic, of sea secrets and sea spells, of music and colours and knowledge and charming notions which the Human Beings had brought her at her birth, though these hardly ever were visible _because_ the princess seemed so different from everybody else. And when, as they drew near the palace, their servants came hastening to escort them, the two looked at each other in the greatest surprise to find that they were prince and princess. For all other things had seemed so much more important.

Their formal meeting took place that evening in the Vasty Hall, where, years before, the princess had been christened. Prince Hesperus was filled with the most joyous anticipation and awaited his presentation to the princess with the feeling that fairyland was just beginning. But the princess, on the other hand, was no sooner back in the palace among her ladies than the curse of her terrible christening present descended upon her as she had never felt it before. How, the poor princess thought, could the prince possibly like her, who was so different from everybody in the world? While she was being dressed, every time that her ladies spoke in a low tone, she imagined that they were speaking of her; every time that one smiled and shook her head, the princess was certain that it was in pity of her. She fancied that they knew that her walk was awkward, her voice harsh, her robe in bad taste, and an old fear came upon her that the palace mirrors had all been changed to conceal from her that she was really very ugly. In short, by the time that she was expected to descend, poor Princess Romancia had made herself utterly miserable.

Therefore, when, in her gown of fresh cobweb, the princess entered the hall and the prince hastened eagerly forward, she hardly looked at him. And when, at the banquet that followed, he sat beside her and tried to continue their talk of the arbour and the walk, she barely replied at all.

“How beautiful you are,” he murmured.

“So is the night,” said the princess, “and you do not tell the night that it is beautiful.”

“Your eyes are like stars,” the prince said.

“There are real stars above,” said the princess.

“You are like no one else!” cried the prince.

“At least you need not charge me with that,” said the poor princess.

Nor would she dance with him or with anyone else. For she imagined that they did not wish to dance with her, and that her dancing was worse than anyone’s. And as soon as she was able, and long before cock-crow, she slipped away from them all and went to sleep in a handy crocus cup.

Now at all this the king and queen were nearly as distressed as the prince, and they were obliged to tell Prince Hesperus the whole story of the christening. When he heard about the uninvited Human Being who had given the baby princess this dreadful present and had kept the key to the bracelet which was its bond, he sprang up and grasped his tiny sword.

“I will go out in the world and find this Human Being,” he cried, “and I will bring back the bracelet key.”

Without again seeing the princess, Prince Hesperus left the palace and fared forth on his quest. And when she found that he was gone, she was more wretched than ever before. For in her life no one had ever talked to her as he had talked, speaking his inmost fancies, and when she had lost him, she wanted more than ever to talk with him. But the king, who was a very wise fairy, did not tell her where the prince had gone.

And now the Princess Romancia did not know what to do with herself. The court was unbearable; all her trivial occupations bored her; and the whole world seemed to have been made different from all other worlds. Worst to endure was the presence of her companions, who all seemed to love and to understand one another, while she only was alone and out of their sympathy.

“Oh,” she cried, “if only I had a game or a task to do with somebody or something that didn’t know I am different--that wouldn’t know who I am!”

And she thought longingly of the prince’s fancy about the leaf-shadow for a pet which should dance with one all day long.

“A leaf-shadow would not know that I am not like everybody else!” the poor princess thought.

One night, when a fairy ring had been formed in an open grassy space among old oaks, the princess could bear it all no longer. When the music was at its merriest and a band of strolling goblin musicians were playing their maddest, she slipped away and returned to the palace by an unfrequented path and entered a long-disused part of the garden. And there, in a corner where she had never before walked, she came on a great place of rich, black earth, which, in the sweet Spring air, lay ready for the sowing. It was the spadeful of earth which the day labourer had brought to her christening; and there, for all these years, the king had caused it to remain untouched, its own rank weed growth enriching its richness, until but a touch would now turn it to fruitage. And seeing it so, and being filled with her wish for something which should take her thought away from herself and from her difference from all the world, the Princess Romancia was instantly minded to make a garden.