e things to each other, and scolded
each other so dreadfully that all their little fairy followers, for
fear, would creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

So, instead of keeping one happy Court and dancing all night through in
the moonlight as is fairies' use, the King with his attendants wandered
through one part of the wood, while the Queen with hers kept state in
another. And the cause of all this trouble was a little Indian boy whom
Titania had taken to be one of her followers. Oberon wanted the child to
follow him and be one of his fairy knights; but the Queen would not give
him up.

On this night, in a mossy moonlit glade, the King and Queen of the
fairies met.

"Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania," said the King.

"What! jealous, Oberon?" answered the Queen. "You spoil everything with
your quarreling. Come, fairies, let us leave him. I am not friends with
him now."

"It rests with you to make up the quarrel," said the King.

"Give me that little Indian boy, and I will again be your humble servant
and suitor."

"Set your mind at rest," said the Queen. "Your whole fairy kingdom buys
not that boy from me. Come, fairies."

And she and her train rode off down the moonbeams.

"Well, go your ways," said Oberon. "But I'll be even with you before you
leave this wood."

Then Oberon called his favorite fairy, Puck. Puck was the spirit of
mischief. He used to slip into the dairies and take the cream away, and
get into the churn so that the butter would not come, and turn the beer
sour, and lead people out of their way on dark nights and then laugh at
them, and tumble people's stools from under them when they were going to
sit down, and upset their hot ale over their chins when they were going
to drink.

"Now," said Oberon to this little sprite, "fetch me the flower called
Love-in-idleness. The juice of that little purple flower laid on the
eyes of those who sleep will make them, when they wake, to love the
first thing they see. I will put some of the juice of that flower on
my Titania's eyes, and when she wakes she will love the first thing she
sees, were it lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, or meddling monkey, or a
busy ape."

While Puck was gone, Demetrius passed through the glade followed by poor
Helena, and still she told him how she loved him and reminded him of all
his promises, and still he told her that he did not and could not love
her, and that his promises were nothing. Oberon was sorry for poor