PhilomÈne ran down the garden walk, her mind in a turmoil. Queen Mab was trotting to meet her along the path, and as soon as she caught sight of her pet, she knelt down on the gravel and held out her arms to it. “O Queen Mab, Queen Mab,” she cried, “I am so happy! It seems it doesn’t matter being ordinary, if only the Good People love one.” The cat had scrambled upon her lap in an instant, and was rubbing a white velvety head against her arm, and licking her hand with a little tongue as rough as it was red. PhilomÈne carried her pussy into the schoolroom, and set it down on the bearskin hearth-rug; then she glanced curiously at the canary in his cage, but he was pecking at the seeds in his seed-trough, and took no notice of her.

Before nightfall it rained. Nurse said it was because Lilian Augusta had sung “Summer suns are glowing” that morning, which, she declared, invariably brought on wet weather. The next day it went on raining, but despite the downpour Miss Mills happened to be in a good humour, and this was just as well, for it was the turn of what PhilomÈne called “the little speckled book,” and it is not easy to give your attention to little speckled books when your thoughts are full of fairies. “The World and All About It” was a very plump little volume, and the squatness of its figure was only equalled by the omniscience of its author. It explained at the beginning who had made the world and why; it gave the exact date for the invention of pottery, and described the best way of handling chopsticks. PhilomÈne had just been learning all about the chameleon, and of how by changing its colour it escapes the notice of its enemies.

“Does not this show the care which Providence takes of all its creatures?” demanded Miss Mills.

“I suppose so,” replied PhilomÈne, thoughtfully.

“Don’t say, ‘I suppose so,’” returned Miss Mills, “the answer in the book is Yes.” But the rebuke was given gently and with a smile, and PhilomÈne was gladder than ever of this easy-going mood when it came to the Scripture lesson, which was her weekly nightmare. For when Miss Mills taught the Scriptures she succeeded in making them as dry as the biscuit which the Red Queen gave to Alice. “Thirst quenched, I hope?” said the Red Queen, and happily did not wait for an answer.

Nurse declined to venture out of doors that day, and an interview with Master Mustardseed was impossible, so when lessons were over PhilomÈne went down to the kitchen to help Lilian Augusta grate the chocolate for a pudding. She found her singing to herself, “And now this holy day is drawing to its end.” “But I don’t see that it is so very holy,” reflected PhilomÈne, “and it isn’t anywhere near its end either. Nurse says it is just out of contrariness that Lilian Augusta likes to sing, “The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended” while she is washing up the breakfast things, and “When morning gilds the skies” over the tea-things, but then I think Nurse is sometimes very cross to Lilian Augusta, and perhaps she doesn’t mean all she sings.”

Lilian Augusta and PhilomÈne were good friends, and had quarrelled only twice, once when the first canary had been allowed to make its escape, and another time on Queen Mab’s account. Lilian Augusta had no love for cats, and she was not pleased therefore when after some fruitless advertising it was settled that Queen Mab should become a member of the household. PhilomÈne, bent on making peace, had carried her new pet into the kitchen and had placed it on the table.

“You know, Lilian Augusta,” she said coaxingly, “we really couldn’t have put such a little, little cat out into the street again, could we? Only see how small it is, and who would have fed it?”

“God, I suppose, Miss,” replied Lilian Augusta unmoved, as she measured out the curry-powder. But PhilomÈne would not hear of this.

“Poor Pussy!” she exclaimed resentfully, “poor, poor Pussy!” And snatching up Queen Mab she walked straight out of the kitchen and did not re-visit it that day. Lilian Augusta, however, had grown first indifferent to the white cat, and then fond of it, for Queen Mab had pretty endearing ways, besides which, devotion to PhilomÈne was at all times a passport to the faithful servant’s good opinion.

For several days the steady rain continued; gardeners rejoiced, other people grumbled. PhilomÈne consoled herself with an occasional peep at her tall silver savings-box, in which she now treasured her latchkey. This savings-box of hers was never looked at, for her father wished her to do as she pleased with her pocket-money, and she had therefore chosen it as a hiding-place for the key. On these wet days, when she could not play in the garden, it was a comfort merely to look at the key through the slit in the lid of the box. Towards the end of the week the rain abated, though it did not stop altogether. People were beginning to cheer up all round, excepting, of course, the gardeners, who said that the soil was sodden, and that the rain had brought the slugs.

Nurse laid aside the pinafore she had been making, and shut her work-box with a snap. “I want to get some insertion,” she announced, “the same as is on your other pinafores. I must see if I can match it,”

“Am I to come too, Nurse?” inquired PhilomÈne anxiously.

“I don’t see the necessity, Miss. You had your walk this morning. You had better stay in and meet your father when he comes home, I should say. He might be back within the next hour.”

PhilomÈne breathed more freely. “I would ask Lilian Augusta to do that much shopping for me,” continued Nurse, “but it’s her time off to-day, and what’s more she never can match things, not so much as a bit of binding. I’m sure it’s very good of the Lord to make me as patient as I am with Lilian Augusta every day of my life.”

No sooner had the hall-door banged downstairs than Master Mustardseed burst into song, so full of joyous trills and turns and crushing-notes, that someone who knew no better might have supposed he was merely showing what difficult music he could contrive to sing if he gave his mind to it. PhilomÈne cautiously put two fingers through the bars of his cage, and at that the canary stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun, cocked his little green head on one side, and perched upon her hand. Then he spoke in a shrill, small voice,

“No need to introduce myself, I suppose?” he said gaily. His manner was good-humoured and easy, and PhilomÈne thought, rightly enough, that he would prove far slower to take offence than her friend the land-agent.

“No,” she said, “Sweet William has told me that Master Mustardseed is really your name; and oh! you cannot think what a difference it has made to me during lesson time to feel that there is a real fairy in the schoolroom. I used to think sometimes, when it was quiet and getting late, that if I listened I might hear my toys talking, as they do in nearly all the story-books, but that never came to anything. Perhaps I didn’t wait long enough, or perhaps they knew I was listening.”

“The story-books are not always as accurate on that point as they ought to be,” replied the canary, “it is really not at all so easy to hear toys talk as they make out. To begin with, the house has to be quite empty; there must be no daylight in the room, only firelight or moonlight; and there must be no time going on.”

“How could that be managed?” asked PhilomÈne, as Master Mustardseed paused to take breath, for he spoke nearly as fast as he sang.

“The clock must have stopped,” said Master Mustardseed, “so you see, it is rather a difficult matter first and last. You have no idea, by the way, what confusion you caused in the dolls’ house the other day by making the dolls play at a wedding.”

“I am sorry if I upset them,” said PhilomÈne in distress, “I thought I should like to have a wedding, because I had read in my history lesson that morning about King Louis XII. of France, and how he over-ate himself at his own wedding-banquet when he married Mary Tudor, and he died, and she was ever so pleased, and went quickly and married someone else.”

“I daresay,” said Master Mustardseed, laughing, “but you married two dolls who did not in the least want to marry each other, poor things, and what was worse, the mistress of the house had invited the Gollywog and the Father Christmas to lunch, and she had to tell them not to come, as there were not enough plates to go round. How would you like to have to do that if you were a hostess? The dolls’ own lives are constantly being interrupted and interfered with by those who play with them, but of course I see that it cannot be helped, and it isn’t your fault. It is the fault of whoever made them dolls.”

“I will look very hard at them next time I want to play,” said PhilomÈne remorsefully, “and perhaps I shall see from the expression on their faces whether they have a funeral or a party or anything of their own fixed for that day. Poor dears, I hope they don’t hate me. But, oh please, will you tell me something about yourself now, and why you are here?”

“Well, as you have already heard,” replied the canary, “I am Master Mustardseed, one of the fairy queen’s four favourite pages, so you made a remarkably good shot at my name. As for why I am here—well, have you never heard that once every hundred years fairies have to turn into animals for a year and a day, and if they are killed during that time, so much the worse for them, for you see, we haven’t what you call souls. However, if we survive that year and that day, we can go back to Fairyland for another hundred years. Now my friend and brother page, Master Moth, of whom I daresay you have heard, had to put in his time before my turn came, and he lived with you as your first canary; but when his year was over he flew away, and knowing that I had shortly to make up my mind what to change into myself, he recommended me to come here, saying that you were a very kind little mistress, and that I might go farther and fare worse. That is why I came, and as for my staying longer than a year and a day, why, my dear, before I left Fairyland I played a prank on the Man in the Moon. He had come to court for the first time, and we pages thought him something of a country cousin. You see, he did not know anything at all about court etiquette, and made absurd mistakes. I thought out the prank all by myself, for I did not want Puck or Moth or Cobweb or Peasblossom to know anything about it; it does not do to have too many people in a secret. All would have gone off well enough, had not the Man in the Moon complained to headquarters. It appears he cannot take a joke; and indeed I might have guessed as much, for I expect you have noticed even at this distance what a wry face he can make. The king and queen were so much displeased that they banished me from court for three years, and I thought I had much better stay on here. But if one day I leave you, you must not be sorry, for I shall only have flown back to Fairyland.”

“Do many of the fairies turn into song-birds?” asked PhilomÈne.

“Yes, a good many of them,” replied Master Mustardseed, “and the court musician always turns into a nightingale. As for the fairies who dislike the bother of housekeeping, they become cuckoos, and lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, which saves them a lot of trouble. Brownies become bees and ants, for they cannot bear to be idle, and a court-lady as often as not turns into a butterfly or humming-bird for the sake of the fine clothes.”

“Have you ever heard the Lorelei sing?” inquired PhilomÈne, “I had to leave out the question about her in Sweet William’s examination paper.”

“No,” replied Master Mustardseed decidedly, “I have always avoided the lady. You know, I suppose, what it is that she sings for? The boatmen hear her, and listen and listen, and watch her combing her shimmering hair, and forget to steer their boats, so that they are sucked down into the whirlpools of the Rhine. The gnomes never did mortals a worse turn than when they made that golden comb for her, and when all’s said and done her hair is no prettier than your own godmother’s. But don’t let’s talk about her any more; I know plenty of stories about much nicer people. Perhaps you would like to hear one right away. Stop me if I talk too fast; Moth says it is a failing of mine.”