"Dear Sunbeam," she said to Sunbeam the Third, "shall you be always in my heart?"

"Yes, if you keep me there," said Sunbeam the Third.

"How can I keep you there?" asked Penelope.

"You must love the fairies," said the sunbeam, "and understand them when they speak to you. If you love the fairies even when you are old, I shall stay in your heart always."

These stories have been written for Penelope, so that she may love the fairies, and keep the sunbeam always in her heart.

CONTENTS

PAGE
[The Bird of Shadows and the Sun-Bird]13
[The Sea-Fairy and the Land-Fairy, and how they quarrelled]21
[Princess Orchid's Party]31
[The Cloud that had no Lining]41
[The Fairies who changed Places]51
[The Making of the Opal]59
[The Big Spider's Diamonds]69
[A Little Girl in a Book]77
[The Fairy who was looking for a Home]85
[The Box of Dreams]95
[The Fairy who had only One Wing]103
[The Little Boy from Town] 111

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Bird of Shadows and the Sun-Bird
["Please," she said, "I want to be a nightingale"]Frontispiece
TO FACE PAGE
The Sea-Fairy and the Land-Fairy
[He held out the little shell in the beam of coloured light]24
Princess Orchid's Party
[She smiled at him very graciously when he was introduced to her]36
The Cloud that had no Lining
[And because the silver of the moonshine-fairies is very light he was ableto carry a great deal of it]46
The Fairies who changed Places
[Drop-of-Crystal was too busy to speak]54
The Making of the Opal
[Of course the Dear Princess ... wore the great opalon the day that she was married]68
The Big Spider's Diamonds
[The web and the diamonds and the Big Spider himself allfell to the ground]74
A Little Girl in a Book
[The other people in the book looked at her in surprise]82