to drop.

But that came to an end after a while, for they heard the Queen scream,
and they stopped to see what the matter might be. It was nothing, though
the Queen was a good deal frightened at first. Milly, who was probably
dreaming about them, smiled very prettily in her sleep, and as the lip
moved, the Queen perched on it almost lost her balance, and came as near
as possible to falling into the pit that was open before her. If she had
fallen in, she would have struck against Milly's teeth, and that might
have been the death of her. She got over her fright soon, and moved a
little farther back to get out of harm's way. This put an end to the
dance.

After some games of hide and seek when they hid in the eyebrows and the
edge of the forest, they had a Tableau. The subject was "The Faery's
Sacrifice." That is a favourite story with them. I myself have painted
it on glass. A Faery--so the story runs--was once in great danger from a
Musquito; it would certainly have caught her and killed her, though she
was winged and flying very swiftly; but just then a horse of
dandelion-down came gliding by; she jumped on it and they two together
were too swift for the Musquito and she escaped; but they went so fast
through the wind that the poor horse lost almost all his down and
finally dropped upon the ground from sheer inability to go further. The
Faery loved him so for saving her that she pulled out her own wings and
fastened them on the horse;--away he went, and she had to creep home as
well as she could. But she did right though she suffered for it; she was
never sorry, and the story is told by the Faeries to their children.
This was the story that they played in the Tableau. There were two
scenes; in the first the Faery is just mounting the horse to escape the
Musquito--the Musquito of course they had to make believe was there, in
the second the horse lies panting on the ground and she is leaning over
it weeping. There should have been a third, as there usually is, where
she puts the wings on the horse, but they had no material with them for
that scene.

Then came a Charade. The word was a very easy one--I guessed it
myself--it was _Duty_. It was divided into two parts; the first was
_dew_. Dew is a drink of the Faeries in summer-time. Half a dozen
Faeries sat in a circle. The hat of one of them which was made of a bit
of rose-leaf, they twisted and turned till it looked a little like the
cup of a violet, though the colour