the water, he began to skim its surface cautiously with a ladle and
empty the contents into one of his phials. Suddenly a look of delight
came into his face, and he uttered a cry--'Stephanoceros!'

Queen Mab thought it was an incantation, and, trembling with fear,
she relaxed her hold of the bough and fell. Not into the pond! She had
wings, of course, and half petrified with horror though she was, she yet
fluttered away from that stagnant water. But alas, in the very effort
to escape, she had caught the eye of the Professor; he sprang up--pond,
animalcule all forgotten in the chase of this extraordinary butterfly.
The fairy's courage failed her: her presence of mind vanished, and the
wild gyrations of the owl, who, too late, realised the peril of his
companion, only increased her confusion. In another moment she was a
prisoner under the butterfly-net.

Beaming with delight, the philosopher turned her carefully into the tin
box, shut the lid and hastened home, too much enraptured with his prize
even to pause to secure the valuable Stephanoceros.

But Queen Mab had fainted, as even fairies must do at such a terrible
crisis; and perhaps it was as well that she had, for the professor
forbore to administer chloroform, under the impression that his lovely
captive had completely succumbed. He put her, therefore, straight into a
tall glass bottle, and began to survey her carefully, walking round and
round. Truly, he had never seen such a remarkable butterfly.

CHAPTER III. -- THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION.

'Rough draughts of Man's Beginning God!'
Swinburne.

When Queen Mab recovered consciousness she heard the sound of violent
voices in the room before she opened her eyes, which she did half hoping
to find herself the victim of some terrible delusion. But the sight of
the professor, standing not a yard away, brought a fatal conviction to
her heart. It was too true. Was there ever a more undesirable position
for a fairy, accustomed to perfect freedom, and nourished by honey and
nectar, than to be closely confined in a tall bottle, with smooth hard
slippery walls that she could not pierce, and nothing to live upon but
a glass-stopper! It was absurd; but it was also terrible. How fervently
she wished, now, that the missionaries had never come to Polynesia.

But the professor was not alone, two of his acquaintances were there--a
divine veering towards the modern school, and a poet--the ordinary poet
of satire and