"Let us have Spring," commanded the Lion.
Immediately the words were uttered there came the soft beating of birds' wings over Ridgwell's head. The atmosphere instantly became fragrant with the myriad scents of wild flowers.
A mist seemed to swim for a second before their eyes, and, as it cleared away, they were standing together with many other children knee-deep in unending banks of bluebells and primroses.
They were in the midst of the most perfect wooded dell they had ever beheld.
Thousands of delicate flower-stems thrust their tiny spears from earth and emerald moss, blossoming with flowers before their wondering eyes.
The spiral hedges slowly shook out dappled clusters of white hawthorn.
The interlaced trees above them, amidst which all the birds in Christendom appeared to be carolling simultaneously, gently outspread friendly arms, overladen with powdered red and white may blossom.
Butterflies with gaily painted wings hovered tenderly overhead, and tiny silver thistledown balls sailed across the blue sky spaces, like little wayward balloons without anybody in charge of them.
"You can all pick as many flowers as you like," suggested the Lion. "Flowers were meant for the children to pick, so make yourselves nosegays, garlands, and crowns galore. There are no notices here to keep off the grass. You can also chase the butterflies if you like, but I warn you that you will never catch them. As a matter of fact that is the one thing I don't permit. Any butterfly with really nice feelings objects most decidedly when a pin is run through its body, as much as a happy fish hates to be caught upon a hook. I sympathise with both of them, and consider such practices ought to be stopped."
Ridgwell, well-nigh immersed in a bank of bluebells, listened in a semi-enchanted condition to the Lion's words of wisdom, and watched the brilliant-coloured butterflies chasing each other in the pearly spaces above him.