you real,
Patty? do tell me!"

But Patty only laughed and said, "I am as real as a great many things in
this world, dear child! Take some anemones, and don't trouble yourself
about their being real, as long as they are good."

When the children had finished their lunch, she took Downy by the hand,
and bade the rest follow her: and then she led them through the
different rooms of the wonderful palace. Dear! dear! such a palace as it
was! I really thought those mice would never get their mouths shut
again, so wide did they open them in their amazement. The first room
they went through was hung with green sea-weed, beautifully fringed, and
the carpet was of softest moss. Here were sitting numbers of pretty
mermaids, sewing and embroidering on great pieces of kelp, with needles
made of the spines of some fish. They all nodded and smiled at the
children, but did not speak, for they knew nothing but Hindostanee.

"To think," murmured Brighteyes, softly, "that we should really be in
the same room with a dozen mermaids! and their neat little tails _are_
covered with scales, just as the song says, and they are sitting in pink
coral chairs. Oh! if I could only find out where the sea-flower grows,
so that I might remember all this!"

Then they passed through halls of deep-red coral, and lovely little
rooms which seemed entirely made of small bright shells set closely
together, until they came to the Sun and Moon rooms, which my good Patty
has named in honor of my brother and me. The Sun room is all gold from
floor to ceiling, burnished gold, which shines so that one really has to
shade one's eyes on going into it. From the glittering ceiling hang
numbers of diamond lamps, which swing perpetually to and fro with a
slow, steady motion, flashing and sparkling like real sunbeams. My room,
which is next to this gorgeous apartment, is no less beautiful, being
all of fretted silver, with lamps of pearl, which shed a lovely soft
light nearly equal to that of my own beams, though not so bright. Of
course the mice were enchanted beyond measure with all this splendor;
but when they begged to be allowed to stay in the lovely silver room and
play, Patty smiled and said, "we have yet many things to see, dear
children, and the night is short. Besides, puss-in-the-corner is no
better fun in a silver room than in a plastered nursery. Come then, and
see the play-room of my little mermaids!"

She threw open a door, and there was a sight which