“Do you think that will do at all?” the fairy king asked the fairy queen, tossing over the list.
“Well, dear,” she replied, “it’s probably the best you can do. You know what people are.” She hesitated a mere breath—a fairy’s breath—and added: “I do wonder a little, though, just why the day labourer.”
“My dear,” said the king, “some day you will understand that, and many other things as well.”
The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapestries as splendid as vistas curtaining the distance. And the music was like the music of All-night, all done at once.
To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as something else—for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings prettily painted. One represented a Rose, and she could hardly be distinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light, whom nobody could recognize. One was a White Moth and one was a Thistle-down, and there were several fantastic toilettes, such as a great Tulle Bow, a Paper Doll, and an Hour-glass. As for the Human Beings present, they all came masked as themselves, as usual; and their names I cannot give you, though sometimes I see someone with dreaming eyes whom I think may possibly have been one of those twelve—for of course it must have made a difference in their looks ever afterward. It was a very brilliant assemblage indeed, and everyone was most intangible and elusive, which are fairy terms for well-behaved.
While the guests were waiting for the fairy baby princess to be brought in, they idled about, with that delightful going-to-be-ice-cream feeling which you have at any party in some form or another, only you must never say so, and they exchanged the usual pleasant nothing-at-alls. It is curious how very like human nothings fairy nothings are.
For example:—
“There is a great deal of night about,” said the Butterfly Fairy with a little shiver. “If I were a truly butterfly, I should never be able to find my way home.”
“And there is such a fad for thunder-and-lightning this season,” added the Paper Doll Fairy, agreeably.
“Do you remember,” asked the White Moth Fairy, “the night that we all dressed as white moths and went to meet the moon? We flew until we were all in the moonlight, and then we knew that we had met her. I wonder why more people do not meet the moon-rise?”