ptain, saying I had just run down from Aldershot.
I didn't know where Aldershot was, but I had no manner of doubt that he
was perfectly right. As a rule, indeed, grown-up people are fairly
correct on matters of fact; it is in the higher gift of imagination that
they are so sadly to seek.

[Illustration: '_Lulled by the trickle of water, I slipped into
dreamland_']

The lunch was excellent and varied. Another gentleman in beautiful
clothes--a lord presumably--lifted me into a high carved chair, and
stood behind it, brooding over me like a Providence. I endeavoured to
explain who I was and where I had come from, and to impress the company
with my own toothbrush and Harold's tables; but either they were
stupid--or is it a characteristic of Fairyland that every one laughs at
the most ordinary remarks? My friend the Man said good-naturedly, 'All
right, Water-baby; you came up the stream, and that's good enough for
us.' The lord--a reserved sort of man, I thought--took no share in the
conversation.

After lunch I walked on the terrace with the Princess and my friend the
Man, and was very proud. And I told him what I was going to be, and he
told me what he was going to be; and then I remarked, 'I suppose you two
are going to get married?' He only laughed, after the Fairy
fashion. 'Because if you aren't,' I added, 'you really ought to':
meaning only that a man who discovered a Princess, living in the right
sort of Palace like this, and didn't marry her there and then, was false
to all recognised tradition.

They laughed again, and my friend suggested I should go down to the pond
and look at the gold-fish, while they went for a stroll. I was sleepy,
and assented; but before they left me, the grown-up man put two
half-crowns in my hand, for the purpose, he explained, of treating the
other water-babies. I was so touched by this crowning mark of friendship
that I nearly cried; and I thought much more of his generosity than of
the fact that the Princess, ere she moved away, stooped down and kissed
me.

I watched them disappear down the path--how naturally arms seem to go
round waists in Fairyland!--and then, my cheek on the cool marble,
lulled by the trickle of water, I slipped into dreamland out of real and
magic world alike. When I woke, the sun had gone in, a chill wind set
all the leaves a-whispering, and the peacock on the lawn was harshly
calling up the rain. A wild unreasoning panic possessed me, and I sped
out of the