ying it, being without their crowns and trains. Master Edmund was
foremost, but he overbalanced himself and lay sprawling on the ground,
whilst the slipper jumped up into a tree. Philip and Alphonse, being the
biggest boys, began immediately to climb up after it. But no sooner had
Alphonse reached the bough where it was perched than it sprang off,
rapped him on the nose, and slid down the opposite side of the tree,
giving the king's leg a sharp kick as it passed by.

"Where has it gone?" cried the two, rapidly descending the tree.

"I don't know," was the general rejoinder, uttered in chorus.

"There it is!" cried Ernest, "hopping across the meadow."

[Illustration: LUGANO. (_See page 90._)]

The whole troop raised a loud shout, and scampered off after it, the
biggest first, and the little ones running in the rear as fast as their
short legs would carry them, and hallooing with the loudest. The slipper
stood still till the foremost was within grasping, length of it, when it
gave a spring and got some yards in advance of the party, and then kept
on hop, hop, hopping before them; yet, although it did not seem to hop
very quickly, and although the young folks ran at the top of their
speed, it always managed to keep at a tantalising distance, so that
none of them could catch it, leading them a fine dance, up hill and down
dale, through hedges and across the stepping-stones of a little brook,
where many a wet shoe and sock were the result of its pranks. At last,
just as Edmund was about to lay hold of it--as he made sure to do--it
bounded to the top of a high, steep bank, and commenced doing the toe
and heel shuffle.

Well, it was a droll sight, certainly, to see that fairy slipper, with
all its sparkling jewels, dancing such a merry jig. I suppose because it
was so droll was the reason why the little folks laughed so loud, and
clapped their hands and jumped about as if they were mad.

Some of the bigger boys began to climb the bank in pursuit of the shoe,
whilst the little ones fancied they did a vast deal towards capturing it
by shouting with all their might; the louder they shouted the quicker
the shoe danced, and the quicker the shoe danced the more they clapped
their hands and laughed.

Alphonse climbed up a break in the bank, and so got to the top of it, a
little to one side of where the shoe was cutting its merry capers. He
crept softly along until he got within arm's length of it, then he made
a bold grasp an