I hesitated. Just before she came I had been anxiously considering as to how I was going to make one hundred pounds do the work of two during the next few weeks; but somehow I didn't quite like to mention such material matters to the Queen; it didn't seem suitable.
I looked up and met her kind eyes fixed on mine with an expression of the gentlest interest and solicitude.
"I wonder," I said, still hesitating, "whether you know anything about stocks and shares?"
"Stocks and shares," she repeated slowly, looking just a little vague and puzzled. And then—"Oh, yes, of course I do, if that's all you want to know."
I felt quite pleased now that I had really got it out.
"If you could just give me a useful hint or two I should be tremendously grateful," I said. Already thousands loomed entrancingly before me. Already I saw myself settled in that darling cottage on the windy hill above Daccombe Wood. Already—
"I think I had better get a pencil and paper," I said. "My memory's dreadful."
But the Fairy Queen shook her head.
"I'll write it down for you," she said, "and you can read it when I'm gone. That's so much more fun. But I don't need paper."
She drew a tiny shining implement from her pocket and, picking up a couple of rose-petals which had fallen upon the table, she busied herself with them for a moment at my desk, her mouth pursed up, her brows contracted in an expression of intense seriousness.