My Fairy Workers were swarming all about. They were sitting in bunches on the bushes and hanging in bunches from branches, and hopping about and giggling and laughing and nudging each other in the ribs as they looked on at the Lion and children. They were as amused as they had been when they watched Winnie sitting on the eggs in the Rook's nest. I called Nip to come to me.
"Jump on to the Lion's tongue," I said to him, "and smooth it off with your plane until it is like satin velvet—not silk velvet, but satin velvet."
The Lion politely put out his tongue. Nip leaped up on it and began to work with his plane. He worked until he was quite hot, and he made the tongue so smooth that it was quite like satin velvet.
"Now you can kiss the baby," I said.
The Little Little Girl had gone to sleep by this time and she had slipped down and lay curled up on the Lion's front leg as if it was an arm and the Lion bent down and delicately licked her soft cheek, and her fat arm, and her fat leg, and purred and purred.
When the other children saw him they crowded round and were more delighted than ever.
"He's kissing her as if he was a mother cat and she was his kitten," one called out, and she held out her hand. "Kiss me too. Kiss me, Liony," she said.
He lifted his head and licked her little hand as she asked and then all the rest wanted him to kiss them and they laughed so that the Little Little Girl woke up and laughed with them and scrambled to her feet and hugged and hugged as much of the Lion as she could put her short arms round. She felt as if he was her Lion.
"I love—oo I love oo," she said. "Tome and play wiv us."