hing was there
of deformity or unsightliness, but rather a weird beauty--fantastic, or
wild, or savage, or terrible--according to the beast or bird suggested
thereby--stalking elk or rolling bison, gloomy bear or rounding panther,
jog-trot wolf or gliding wild-cat, nodding jay or fluttering pigeon,
swooping hawk or sweeping eagle.

Sprigg had hardly time to note all this, when the weird procession had
swept past him, and the last lingerers were now vanishing to the distant
shadows of the subterranean temple. Though myriads had departed, many
still remained--several of every order--as if, while their fellows were
abroad, each fulfilling his special mission, these had some
corresponding office to perform here at home. Somewhat apart from the
rest stood a group arrayed in the skins of bears, and among these two
who, by their lofty port and commanding gestures, were evidently the
king and queen of this strange realm. The aspect of the king was dark
and stern; that of the queen fair and mild. The latter, as, indeed, all
the other elfin women, wore upon her head, instead of the feathered
coronal, a wreath of intense crimson flowers, marvelously beautiful;
whence came stealing forth the delectable perfume, which the boy had
perceived in the air from the moment Meg of the Hills had made her
appearance the night before. As he stood there, surveying them, Sprigg
felt in his heart that these were the two whose voices he had heard in
such earnest conference relative to his particular case.

The young guest now looked about him for the young bears with whom he
had slept, but not only his bedfellows, but the bed itself had vanished.
Then he knew that they must be among those who wore the skins of bears,
and that, instead of having been littered with cubs, he had shared the
couch of princes.

In saying that the magic coronal enabled the mortal who wore it to see
the sights and hear the sounds of Fairyland as distinctly as the fairies
themselves, a slight mistake was made. Although he could not perceive
them, Sprigg had his reasons for suspecting that other boys, beside
himself, were there in that underground world; yes, and men, too. Girls
and women--all waiting, like himself, to be "put through," though what
that might mean the poor boy could, of course, have little or no
conception. Invisible though these fellow mortals were, he could see
their shadows cast with marvelous distinctness upon the floor of the
temple; and, strange to