“Dear me! I did not know he had a library. Do let me see it!”
“You see it now,” said the librarian, waving his hand; “look at all the books.”
I looked round, but saw nothing except a circle of trees, whose great boughs, meeting overhead, made a kind of leafy roof, through which could be seen the faint, rosy flush of the sunset sky. The ground, as I said before, was covered with daisy-sprinkled turf, and there was a still pool of shining water in the centre, upon the bosom of which floated large white lilies.
“I must say I don’t see anything except leaves,” I said, after a pause.
“Well—those are the books.”
“Oh, are they! Well, I know books have leaves, but I didn’t know leaves were books.”
The faery looked puzzled.
“You must have some faery blood in you,” he said at length, “or you would never have found your way into this forest; but you don’t seem to have enough of the elfin nature to see all the wonders of Faeryland.”
“Oh, do let me see the wonders of Faeryland!” I asked eagerly; “now that I am here, I want to see everything.”
“No doubt you do,” retorted the faery, with a provoking smile; “but I don’t know if the King will let you—however, I’ll ask him when he wakes.”