When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a strange new country, that was all made of rose-coloured dreams, and filled with rose-coloured air, and lighted with rose-coloured sunbeams. There were no people or trees or mountains or rivers to be seen; but before the little Prince had time to notice this, his mind was filled with rose-coloured thoughts, and so he forgot the Lady Daffodilia and his own crossness and everything that had made him unhappy when he was in the real world.
"Hullo! Where am I?" he cried.
"You are in the world of dreams, to be sure," said a voice in his ear. "Where else should you be at your time of life?"
"But who lives here?" asked Prince Brilliant.
A great many voices answered him. "We live here, of course," they said. "We are really nice dreams, we are; and when children are the right sort, like yourself, they come here to stay with us until they are grown up."
"May I play with you, then?" asked the Prince. In the real world he had been too fond of books to play much, but here he felt as though he must do nothing but play all day long.
"Of course you may," answered the dream voices; "that is what you are here for."
Prince Brilliant was soon the happiest boy possible. Some people might think it dull to have playfellows who could not be seen, but the Prince thought nothing could be more delightful than to live in the midst of dreams for the rest of his life. It is true that he was fast forgetting everything that his Professor had taught him; but this was hardly surprising, for there is no room in a very small head for serious thoughts as well as rose-coloured ones.
It is doubtful whether the Prince would ever have wanted to go back to the real world again, if he had not met the daddy-longlegs one day, as he was strolling along with his favourite dream.
"Hullo!" said the daddy-longlegs, chuckling. "I see it is time for you to go back into the real world."