“Because he is the heir, of course,” answered Mopsa.
“But I don’t see that this is any reason at all,” said Jack.
Mopsa laughed. “That’s because you don’t know how to argue,” she replied. “Why, the thing is as plain as possible.”
“It may be plain to you,” persisted Jack, “but it’s no reason.”
“No reason!” repeated Mopsa, “no reason! when I like you the best of anything in the world, and when I am come here to be queen! Of course, when the spell was broken he took exactly your form on that account; and very right too.”
“But why?” asked Jack.
Mopsa, however, was like other fairies in this respect—that she knew all about Old Mother Fate, but not about causes and reasons. She believed, as we do in this world, that
“That that is, is,”
but the fairies go further than this; they say:
“That that is, is; and when it is, that is the reason that it is.”