e himself,
swathed in a wonderful silk mantle edged with pearls and turquoises,
slept in the Astrologer's arms.

The procession entered the church, where the venerable Lord Archbishop,
surrounded by a magnificent choir, was awaiting its coming. A hush went
over the great assembly as the parents and the godparents advanced to
the flower-decked font, and the silence lasted until His Eminence had
sprinkled the Prince and given him the name of Rolandor. Then the bells
rang again, the organ roared so that the windows shook in their
casements, and the choristers sang like birds on a summer afternoon.

The christening over, the procession went back to the castle, past the
waiting rows of bystanders, not one of whom had changed his place or
gone away, so superb had been the spectacle.

The christening banquet was laid in the great hall of the castle, and,
thanks to the Court Astrologer, things went off beautifully. It was the
only large banquet ever known in the history of the world where courses
were served all at one time, and while one person was finishing an ice,
another was not beginning with the soup. Nor was the menu mixed, which
happens so frequently to-day that you are apt to have soup, ice, cake,
roast, soup, and a roast again. No, from soup to ice the banquet was a
huge success; but, alas, disaster came with the strawberry-tart.

As the Queen was chatting with the Lord Chancellor of the Enchanted
Islands, she happened to notice--for like a good hostess she had been
keeping an eye to the comfort of her guests--that nobody on the
right-hand side of the hall had been served with strawberry-tart. Almost
at the same moment, the chief cook, looking rather pale and worried,
bustled through the throng and whispered in her ear, "Your Majesty, the
strawberry-tart has given out!"

The Queen turned pale. At length she managed to ask in a weak voice,
"Have you plenty of other pastries?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," replied the cook.

"Then let them be served at once."

The cook withdrew, and the Queen, though somewhat shaken, took up the
conversation again. Ten minutes passed, and she was beginning to forget
her start, when a voice, rising clear and rasping over the hubbub of the
hall, said suddenly, "Where's my piece of strawberry-tart?"

Everybody turned toward the speaker, an elderly fairy from the Kingdom
of the Black Mountains, named Malvolia. She stood up in her place, her
arms akimbo, glowering at her plate, on which an