d mood.

'You can bring up tea here, Champion,' she said, 'and some
tea-cake--_you_ like tea-cake of course,' she said to Mark, with
something of afterthought. 'Mother and Mabel are out, calling or
something,' she added, 'so we shall be quite alone. And now sit down
there in that chair and tell me everything you know about fairies.'

Mark's heart sank--this was not at all what he had hoped for; but
Dolly had thrown herself back in her own chair, with such evident
expectation, and a persuasion that she had got hold of an authority on
fairy-lore, that he did not dare to expostulate--although in truth
his acquaintance with the subject was decidedly limited.

'You can begin now,' said Dolly calmly, as Mark stared blankly into
his hat.

'Well,' he said, 'what do you want to know about them?'

'_All_ about them,' said Dolly, with the air of a little person
accustomed to instant obedience; Mark's letter had not quite dispelled
her doubts, and she wanted to be quite certain that such cases as that
of the sugar prince were by no means common.

'Well,' said Mark again, clearing his throat, 'they dance round in
rings, you know, and live inside flowers, and play tricks with
people--that is,' he added, with a sort of idea that he must not
encourage superstition, 'they did once--of course there are no such
things now.'

'Then how was it that that little girl you knew--who was not me--ate
one up?'

'He was the last one,' said Mark.

'But how did he get turned into sugar? Had he done anything wrong?'

'That's how it was.'

'What was it--he hadn't told a story, had he?'

'It's exactly what he _had_ done,' said Mark, accepting this solution
gratefully; 'an _awful_ story!'

'What was the story?' Dolly demanded at this, and Mark floundered on,
beginning to consider Dolly, for all her pretty looks and ways, a
decided little nuisance.

'He--he said the Queen of the Fairies squinted,' he stammered in his
extremity.

'Then it was she who turned him into sugar?'

'Of course it was,' said Mark.

'But you said he was the last fairy left!' persisted the terrible
Dolly.

'Did I?' said Mark miserably; 'I mean the last but one--she was the
_other_.'

'Then who was there to tell the story to?' Dolly cross-examined, and
Mark quailed, feeling that any more explanation would probably land
him in worse difficulties.

'I don't think you know very much about it, after all,' she said with
severity. 'I suppose you put all you knew