coming, though it wants an ornament of some kind to
set it off. But perhaps you don't care for jewellery?"

"I do," said Daphne, "very much. But I haven't any now, you see."

"But you had once, hadn't you? I seem to recollect the Queen telling me
she bought something--a pendant, I fancy she said--from you before you
came to Maerchenland. Or was it somebody else?"

"No, it was me," said Daphne. "It was very decent of her, because I was
in rather a hole just then--with a debt I couldn't possibly have paid
otherwise--and the pendant was no use to _me_, you see--not a thing I
could ever have worn."

"So you wasted your money in buying an ornament which was unsuited to
you, eh?"

"I didn't buy it, Court Godmother," said Daphne, and proceeded to
explain--much as she had done at "Inglegarth"--how it came into her
possession. The Fairy questioned her about her father, but she had
little information to give. Even his name was uncertain, as it seemed he
had only moved into his last rooms shortly before his death. All his
landlady could say was that it was something foreign which she could not
pronounce. But she had gathered from certain things he had let fall that
he had led a wandering life as a musician, and had at one period been a
riding-master. She believed that, in the latter capacity, he had met his
young wife, Daphne's mother, and that it had been a runaway marriage.
She died soon after giving birth to Daphne, and left him so
broken-hearted that he did not care to make any fight against illness
when it came to him, but rather welcomed a death that meant re-union.
"But all I _really_ know," concluded Daphne, "is that that pendant
belonged to him, and that my adopted Mother took care of it for me till
I was grown up. And I think he would not have minded my selling it when
I wanted the money so badly."

"Well, whether he would have minded or not," said the Fairy, "you _did_
sell it--and a sorry bargain you made of it, too! I'll be bound, now,
that you've told the whole Court about it long ago!"

"I have told no one, Court Godmother," said Daphne. "Why should I tell
them about my own private affairs? I shouldn't have said anything to
_you_, if you hadn't heard of it already from her Majesty."

"You were wise to hold your tongue," remarked the Fairy, greatly
relieved. "For I may tell you that, if the Court once heard that the
Queen bought that jewel from you, it would prejudice them very seriously
against her. And I a