to walk by looking the other way, and then turn round
sharply. Another good plan, which David and I sometimes follow, is to
stare them down. After a long time they can't help winking, and then
you know for certain that they are fairies.

[Illustration: But if you look, and they fear there is no time to hide,
they stand quite still pretending to be flowers (missing from book)]

There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous
gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once
twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls'
school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth
gowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they all
stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths.
Unfortunately what the governess had heard was two gardeners coming to
plant new flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a hand-cart
with the flowers in it, and were quite surprised to find the bed
occupied. 'Pity to lift them hyacinths,' said the one man. 'Duke's
orders,' replied the other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug up
the boarding-school and put the poor, terrified things in it in five
rows. Of course, neither the governess nor the girls dare let on that
they were fairies, so they were carted far away to a potting-shed, out
of which they escaped in the night without their shoes, but there was a
great row about it among the parents, and the school was ruined.

As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are
the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but
you can't see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark,
but you can't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I
never heard of any one yet who could see night in the daytime. This
does not mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as
day has, but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens
are like ours with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built
of many-coloured glasses, and it is quite the loveliest of all royal
residences, but the queen sometimes complains because the common people
will peep in to see what she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk,
and press quite hard against the glass, and that is why their noses are
mostly snubby. The streets are miles long and very twisty, and have
paths on each side made of bright worsted. The birds used to steal the
wor