We must go back to an earlier stage of the triumph of June, when the happy developments, aforesaid, were generally but generating in men's minds, and had not come to actual processes of materialization.
It was April--the beginning of the last week of the joyous month; and though on all sides of her there was bustling evidence of her absolute victory, June felt sad, for Oberon had given no sign of his forgiveness. He and Titania were the only fairies who had not come to justify her happiness. Realizing this, she had almost enough sorrow for tears. Why did not the king come? Could his displeasure still be active?
As she flew here, there, and all about the radiant Metropolis--from over which the pall of evil had been finally removed--she sighed and sighed again. Her comrades, seeing the sadness, her burden, were grieved. It was the only dark speck on a condition of absolute joy.
June visited her human friends--Sally Wilkins, the Oldsteins, Archdeacon Pryde, the Mosses, the Duke and Duchess of Armingham, Lord Geoffrey Season, Sir Titus Dods--and rejoiced to find them still at work on the right lines, marching the way of fairy progress, but her yellow depression clung to her and would not be shaken off.
Strange that even in the hour of fulfilled joy she should be haunted by the spectre of disappointment; but so it was.
The last days of April drifted by. It was the evening of its thirtieth day. Soon after midnight, in the first of the morning darkness, the fairy of the year was to be crowned.
June hid herself in loneliness on her roof over Paradise Court, drooped her wings, and was, in every respect, weary. The hour of reaction, so long resisted, at last had come. She felt then that the successful fulfilment of her quest, while lifting a weight from her, had also taken away something that sustained and inspired her. With Bim far away--she knew not where--and her multitude of comrades dispersed in all parts of the Metropolis, or, she supposed, travelling to the new crowning, her burden of weakness and weariness was heavy indeed.
She looked up to the sky, and remembered the evening of a year ago. The stars were shining now as they shone then. The crescent moon looked down. Curious as ever, Diana, that prudish old maid, the Hellenic Mrs. Grundy, peeped through the silver cranny, and watched the world, waiting the crowning.
Memories of the last May-day came forcefully to June. She recollected Oberon's appeal to her; Titania's brief kindness of championship; her own defiance and flight. How changed things were since then! She longed to be back in the Land of Wild Roses, now that her task was fulfilled.
Though the stars were shining brightly, life and the sky seemed to her grey, and grey remained till the clocks struck eleven. Roused by their chorus from her depressing reverie, she flew to the highest chimney on her roof, to contemplate in farewell the wonders surrounding her.