ly as if this were the fact. "It's a wicked plot to set up my own
governess as a pretender, but there's a very short way of settling
_that_! I shall send for the Marshal"--and she made a movement towards a
handbell of exquisitely engraved crystal with a sapphire tongue. "I
shall tell him what you have dared to say, and have you and that
wretched girl arrested as traitors!"

The Fairy shook with mingled fury and fear, for she saw too late that
she had made a wrong move. "Before you do that, listen to me," she said.
"All I have said is true, and you know it is true, but it was you who
forced me to say it, and I am willing to be silent so long as you permit
me to convey Lady Daphne to Clairdelune. As she has no suspicion of her
claims to the throne, you need have no fear that she will assert them."

"I can't trust either of you--you are much too dangerous," said the
Queen, and she rang the bell.

"You had better take my warning," said the Fairy, her wrinkled mouth
working with passion. "Old as I am, I have some powers left that you
little suspect. Scarce an hour ago I changed myself into a pool and Lady
Daphne into a cypress" (she naturally omitted to add how narrowly they
had escaped having to remain so indefinitely), "and by aid of the same
spell I could transform you to a shape which--which you will discover
after I have caused you to assume it. And it is a shape that you will
not _like_!"

"Pooh!" said the Queen, on whom the re-integration of the under-gardener
into Mirliflor seemed to have left little impression. "Either you're
trying to frighten me or you're crazy. Whichever it is, you ought to be
put under restraint--and I shall see to it that you are!"

"After that I'll do what I threatened!" snarled the Court Godmother. "It
may kill me--but I don't care--I'll do it!" And she mouthed words of
mystic sound and import, though her jaw trembled so violently that she
could scarcely pronounce them. "Now," she concluded, pointing her crutch
at the Queen's breast, "become--become a----!"

But what the Queen was to become never transpired, for before the
infuriated Fairy could manage to name it her features suddenly became
contorted, the stick fell from her hand, and she sank down in a heap
just as the attendants entered in answer to the Royal summons.

"I'm afraid," said Queen Selina, "that the Court Godmother has fainted.
I daresay it's nothing serious, still one of you had better bring the
Royal Apothecary at once