being put down at once, had they been able;
but, whether it was that the car had some peculiarly soporific tendency,
or whether it was merely the sudden swift rush through the upper air, a
torpor had already fallen on the whole Stimpson family. It was even
questionable if they remained long enough awake to hear their
destination.

Daphne, for some reason, did not fall asleep till later. She lay back in
her luxuriously cushioned seat, watching the birds as they flew, spread
out in a wide fan against the dusky blue evening sky. Gablehurst, with
its scattered lights, artistic villa-residences, and prosaic railway
station--its valley and common and wooded hills, were far below and soon
left behind at an ever increasing distance. But she did not feel in the
least afraid. It was odd, but, after the first surprise, she had lost
all sense of strangeness in a situation so foreign to all her previous
experience.

"So we're being taken to Maerchenland," she was thinking. "That's the
same as Fairyland, practically. At least it's where all the things they
call Fairy stories really happened, and--_why_ I can't imagine--but Mr.
and Mrs. Stimpson have been chosen King and Queen! And the poor dear
things have no idea of it yet! Oh, I wonder" (and here, no doubt, the
little creases came into her cheeks again, for she laughed softly to
herself), "I _wonder_ what they'll say or do when they find out!" And
while Daphne was still wondering, her eyelids closed gently, and she,
too, was sleeping soundly.

CHAPTER III

FINE FEATHERS

Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson was the first of her party to recover
consciousness. When she did, she was greatly surprised to find that it
was broad daylight, and that she was lying on a grassy slope, behind
which was a forest of huge pines. Close beside her were the recumbent
forms of her husband and family, which led her to the natural conclusion
that the car must have met with an accident.

"Sidney!" she cried, shaking him by the shoulder. "Speak to me!
You're--you're not _seriously_ hurt, are you?"

"Eh, what?" he replied sleepily, and evidently imagining that he was
comfortably in bed at home; "all right, my dear, all right! I'll get up
and bring in the tea-tray presently. Lots of time.... Why, hullo!" he
exclaimed, after being shaken once more, as he sat up and rubbed his
eyes. "How do we all come to be _here_?"

The others were awake by this time. "And now we're here," put in
Clarence, "where _