The fairies, giving the lead to the Bodyguard, which went to work with

the zeal of idealist youthfulness, made a dead set against unhealthy

houses. Jerry the builder began to feel uneasy, and serve him right!

Leaky roofs, sinking walls, warped woodwork, and other results of the

jobbery of Jerry, the fairies touched with destructive wands and

hastened the decay. The scamping engineer was hoist with his own

petard. Ill-built houses, good only at the best for a few uncomfortable

years, became at once so outrageously bad, and obviously so dangerous,

that Studge, Snodge, Hopkins, and the rest of the gowned brethren on the

Borough Council, were compelled for a time to forget prospects of

pickings and the interested grinding of axes, in order to insure that

Jerry's offensive structures were demolished to be reconstructed

promptly with conscience and workman-like bricks and mortar.

"If these shadows must have shells," said June, "let them be worthy and

pretty shells!"

That is the spirit in which the fairies approached contracts and

quantities. They carried their influence abroad.

Jerry had the grey time of his life. His pocket was suffering so

conspicuously that his conscience became pricked and tender. He lay

awake o' nights thinking copy-book mottoes. He was haunted by

goody-goody ghosts. He wriggled, struggled--surrendered, coming

reluctantly to the conclusion that honesty was, after all, the best

policy. He acted accordingly. Hopkins, Snodge and Studge, now becoming

passionately possessed of civic righteousness, kept eyes upon him, and

realized for themselves the blessed compensations of disinterested

public service.

The fairies made war on ugliness. They made a dead set against

hideousness in all its aspects. Whatever was bad and depressing in

public and private buildings went rapidly to decay. Practical men were

puzzled. They attempted to solve the mystery by rule of thumb, as

usual, and were always at fault. There was more scratching of

contractors' heads during those summer and autumn months than had been

since the building of Babel.

Men whose whole lives were an experience in joists and concrete, whose

favourite field of talk was estimates and specifications, were utterly

perplexed at the seemingly unreasonable circumstances which suddenly

beset their trade. They asked each other desperate questions, and

spread bewilderment. Why was rottenness so soon exposed? Why did that

cornice which pleased them, though its adorned ugliness would have

infuriated Ruskin, begin to fall away in slabs? They could not answer;

but--it was!

A paradox lurked beside every doorway. The curious thing was that

whatever was simple and beautiful lasted longer than usual, while the

ill-adorned, ugly and drab went speedily to bits.

The fairies' policy was fruitful. Mean streets slowly ceased to deserve

their adjective. Slums disappeared--were transformed with wonderful

rapidity. With lighter rooms and prettier houses laughter came! Jerry

called himself Joseph, wore fancy waistcoats, and felt a patriot. The

business of artists boomed.

The extraordinary transformation which splendidly uprose was, in truth,

an abiding, complete mystery to purblind practical men--they who measure

facts with foot-rules, and look at life through theodolites. They could

not understand the true reason why they had to build better. But the

fairies knew; aha! the fairies knew.

June's company went about brightening what they approved with invisible

paint, and gave cramp and spasms to folk with wilfully low ideals. They

enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Bim was indefatigable in his efforts.

It was not only in the building-world that the fairies did so well.

Active as they were in arranging for the demolition and reconstruction

of certain districts of London, they also looked after humanity in many

other ways.

Here are a few instances of their manifold activities culled from

Blue-books on the subject.

Workhouses were made worthier, less frightening, more homely; they

became honourable retreats for the aged and unfortunate. Workhouse

masters wore coloured shirts, encouraged the old men to play senile

games of cricket, called every old woman "Ma'am." ...

School-teachers had the happiest faculty for periodically ignoring the

time-table and telling the children unexpected fairy tales at hours

officially dedicated to sums. The children came to school eagerly,

charmed there by this delightful uncertainty; and then in their homes

retold the tales to brothers, sisters, and parents. The school-songs

and games became most joyous; elves helped the children to sing and

play....

Street-corner speakers grew wondrous gentle to each other. The old

uncharity disappeared. Temperance orators tried the effects of

geniality, and began to make progress against the enemy. Time-worn

political opponents invited each other to share the top of a common tub;

and there, while differing, praised each other's tolerance and

sincerity....

The front-door to Utopia was opening.

At a bye-election, politicians found themselves scrupulous; canvassers

stuck to the truth, took no unfair advantages, left personalities coldly

alone. The Buffs, always well-provided, lent their enemy, the Blues,

whatever carriages and motor-cars they could spare. Partisans of either

side went to chair the rival candidate, and in the friendliest manner

possible wished him to lose....

The causes which you, O reader, are opposed to fizzled out.

Roofs of city houses were covered with green plants, and turned into

gardens, enabling employes to do their business better because work was

punctuated with restful visits to the flowers....

Soap was vigorously used. Cleanliness became a creed and a passion.

Morning faces, floors and doorsteps shone. (Five fortunes would not

induce me to divulge the name of the favourite soap.)

All British birds in cages were taken into the country and released.

Gourmets started a league to prohibit the eating of larks. The

woodlands, therefore, rang with happier songs, and Fairyland advanced

with seven-league boots....

Bean-feasters devoted evenings to the practising of glees, reviving

folk-songs, so that country roads were no longer rendered wretched with

the crude strains of music-hall choruses. Delightful concerts were

organized for Londoners among the green fields. England once more began

to be merry with song....

Vulgarity lost its flavour. Rudeness was cold-shouldered. Jokes which

were not nice were not laughed at. They fell flat as recumbent

tomb-stones. Humour--the real article--lived again. It was pleasant to

hear the persiflage of office-boys, which began to be original. Omnibus

drivers and cabmen were sometimes really funny. As for judges, they

always joked in the right places....

The elves and the Bodyguard looked to the hoardings, which became more

pleasant and effective as the artistic charm of advertisements

increased. Colours were chosen which combined harmoniously. Passers-by

no longer suffered toothache and heart-spasm because of some militant

eyesore. Those pestilent bobbly lights, that reiterate a trade-name at

night-time, were torn down by righteous raging mobs, hammered and

drowned....

What else the fairies did I need not detail here, for the reader who has

come to this page has proved perfectly capable of adding to the series

of their good effects. It was all just splendid.

London surely and rapidly recovered itself; and as its appearance and

manners progressed towards perfection, more fairies, encouraged by the

brightness, came; more pillar-boxes were settled upon; the circle of

influence was still wider spread; the march of amelioration went on.

When a hundred fairies had arrived, and forty-three gnomes had followed

them--which was not until October, the sere of the year, had

arrived--June decided to give a garden-party on the roofs of Paradise

Court.

Bim was appointed major-domo, lord high-butler, and general factotum,

something like fifteen officials in one. He swelled visibly with proper

pride. His energy in making the preparations was so intense--he managed

so successfully to be in two places at once--that not a few of his

fellow-gnomes thought him blessed with invisible wings. His dignity and

importance were unquestionable. He wore the superiority, won through

being the first gnome to brave the rigours of London, so openly that his

brethren of the democracy became more than a wee bit envious. Perhaps

Bim's head had become very slightly swelled.

Meanwhile June was wondering what Oberon was doing.

That October night was an occasion to be well-remembered by fairy and by

man, though man remained blind to its doings, albeit benefiting by its

effects. The moon, which since the affair of the Violet Valley had

disguised her interest in the rebellion of June, shone openly, and

looked with all her seas. That London night was alive with vivid

beauty, every angle and chimney-pot of those decaying hideous houses

being beneficently illumined by her beams.

The roof-world was no longer a black and grey wilderness. Elfin wands,

gnome labours, and many ingenuities had covered it with tiny lights and

fairy flowers, making it a piece with the dream-world.

June--hostess and heroine--wore her lustrous crown. There were songs,

dances, and much great joy. Gnomes, sitting in rows on chimney rims and

along the edges of stacks, sang and applauded. Only one well-known song

in the anthology of Elfdom was not heard during that night of revel--the

triumph song, the chant reserved for the May-day crowning.

Mankind was still blind to these celebrations. It really seemed as if

men must be trying to see with their noses. Such wonderful things were

happening just under their very eyes which they could not see, and in

their purblindness would not imagine. It is a heart-breaking business,

the open-eyed blindness of men.

Later on, of course, they had better than glimmerings--but sufficient

for this chapter is what we have said.

One old woman, and one old woman alone, had glimpses of that revel. She

was Irish.

Bridget Malone had oftentimes, in her young days, seen fairies round an

empty hearth in Connaught; but when she came to London, forty years

before, she had forgotten the precious faculty, and lost the power of

seeing the unseen. This sight of triumphant elves restored the gift.

Bridget woke out of sleep. Her bed was on the floor, but her bones were

accustomed to hardness, so that not want of warmth or any Sybarite

troubles caused her to wake.

She saw a strange light reflected on the tattered wall opposite the

window. She breathed a prayer to Mary, and looked for the supernatural,

for this was not moon-rays or sunshine, but something of both blended

and idealized; something of the light which never was on sea or land.

Bridget, in her half-asleep wisdom, guessed it was the little people.

Her thoughts flew back in a flash to the days of childhood. She

thoughtfully thanked her stars, and felt religious.

She had it in mind to wake her daughter and three grandchildren, all

sleeping in the same room, that they might share her good fortune, but

refrained. If it were the fairies, they might not be pleased. She

remembered the jealous secrecy reputed of the little people in the old

country, who could not bear their meetings to be overlooked. So Irish!

Bridget, therefore, saw those revels alone. She crept on her knees to

the window and watched, resting her chin on the sill. It was so good a

sight that she did not know she had cramp, and quite forgot the

rheumatism from which she had made her family suffer for the last five

years. She was lost in a rapture.

"'Twas a soight to make ould eyes shparkle," she related afterwards.

"On the tip-top of that chimney-pot was a little rhound man for all the

worruld like a shwollen dumplin', but as rid as holly-berries. That was

a turr'ble important little gintleman. He looked like the settin' sun

full o' twinkles; and the way he would come down and bless the others,

rhound lumps like hisself, as if he was cock o' the dancin', was a

wonder! And there, on a t'rone, made out of all sorts of fer-rns and

flowers, was a leddy-queen fairy. She had a cr-rown on her head that

would buy Ireland's ransom; it shparkled and it shone, like the sun,

moon and shtars all togither, whan glancin' on a lake in Connaught. Her

face was a pictur' of kindness. Her eyes and her mouf were smilin' like

blessin's. I'd have made her a cake for luck if I'd known how to get it

to her, and I didn't want to frighten them away, the darlin's, a-leppin'

and a-rompin' so prettily. So I put my daughter's petticoat round me

and kept on lookin'. There were hunderds and hunderds of fairies. They

danced like anyt'ing; and waved about and looked so beautiful--it was a

pictur'! Hev ye iver heard nightingales in an Irish wood? Hev ye iver

seen moonbeams on an Irish river? No! Dear, what can I say to ye?

Well, you've seen mother's love in a woman's face, so you'll get some

ghost of a notion of the music and the poethry, and the ma'nifishence of

that dancin'. The light which came from the little people--it all came

from them, with a little moonlight t'rown in--was br-right as fire on

Tara.... And ye don't belave it? ... Ah, ye makes a mishtake, young

gintleman! If they weren't fairies that I saw, and if I didn't see

them, there's no hope for you nor for me nayther, for as thrue as

Cuchulain killed his son they were there--as thrue as thruth they were

there. I saw thim with these ould eyes.... See them? Of course I did!

'Twas plain as ugliness, only 'twas beautiful as light could make it.

They kept on, they kept on, I tell ye, till afther the sun was up, and

the lasht I saw of thim was the fairy with the cr-rown on shmilin' and

shmilin'!"

So much for the testimony of Bridget Malone. Strangely enough--although

the newspapers, thanks chiefly to the Venerable Archdeacon Pryde and Sir

Titus Dods, now in the last month of his mayoralty, had made Oberon

popular, and it was a beautiful commonplace to have faith in the

fairies--no one treated Bridget's story with proper respect or even with

simple common sense. Paradise Court--her own country--was packed with

disbelievers, and--is it not always so?

Indirectly, however, her story had one good effect. It set others

telling and inventing fairy-tales--spreading a fine fashion. So June,

seeing that result, forgave the incredulity. The imagination of the

people was awake.

Yes, Bridget had told the truth. The fairy with the crown was "shmilin'

and shmilin'." The last moment of the revel brought June its crowning

happiness, a great unexpected cause for joy.

As Bridget has told us, daylight was abroad, and the sun had risen,

before the fairy dancing ended.

A white cloud--or it may have been a gulp of white smoke from an

awakening workshop chimney--came sailing in the direction of the

roof-garden. June watched it, wondering; it seemed charged with

mystery.

As it passed overhead, she realized its burden. The magic of the crown

gave her power to pierce its secret.

Hidden in the little white cloud was Oberon flying. He had come in

disguise to spy out the land; had seen, had passed on his way.

Thus there was a fine full-stop to the revels.

Some notes of interrogation were added by June--"Would Oberon come to

resume his reign? Where might Titania be? Was Fairyland at last on the

way?"

Not yet. Not just yet!

*CHAPTER XVII*

*THE ARISTOCRACY MOVES*

As soon as the campaign of the pillar-boxes had well begun, and fairy

progress was rapidly marching, June settled down to the siege and taming

of her Grace of Armingham. That was a difficult fortress to reduce!

For weeks the fairy was baffled.

The Duchess, as we know, had many great qualities, which need no

advertisement here. Her main defect, which does matter, was a sublime

indifference to certain most important sub-lunar things. She had at

this time no sympathy, imagination, or gift of genial make-believe;

there was nothing for the fairy to fasten to. It was much like trying

to grow orchids in a vacuum.

June did not repeat her prankish experiment of the night of the party.

Now and then the Duchess of her own accord thought a pun--habit had

begun to pale the lurid hideousness of the thing--and actually came to

regard herself as possessing some sense of humour--in this case a

hopeful sign. June was merciful and not unwise. Never again was the

Duchess urged by any invisible spirit of mischief to the brink of a

breach of decorum.

The fairy was tactfully careful to do nothing to lessen her Grace's

self-respect. The prize must be won with all flags flying. A

discredited victim would mean no worthy--and possibly no

permanent--victory. So the best order of diplomacy was required. June

wove her spells, and brought magic to bear. These influences had some

effect from the beginning; but it was to be a very lethargic conversion.

For a time the Duchess gave no signs of submission.

The Duke was more malleable. June found it easy to influence him. He

became quite a champion of fairydom over the dinner-table; and, when the

men were left to their cigars, toasted Titania daily, in the good

old-fashioned manner, with an apt quotation from the classics.

Nor did his enthusiasm and efforts finish there. Twice before the

session ended he drove down to the House of Lords to move a resolution

which would lead England elfwards; but, alas! on both occasions the

warmth of the Gilded Chamber and the influence of ministerial

explanations sent him to sleep. He awoke each time to find the Woolsack

untenanted; the House adjourned; the opportunity gone.

The fairies took the will for the deed; and, after all, in those still

unregenerate days, it came to much the same thing.

It was Geoffrey from whom Elfland came to hope most. He was young,

capable of enthusiasm, and was already, though only in a shadowy way, on

the side of the fairies.

He had thoroughly awakened to facts, and begun to take life very

seriously. He went at his problems with a will. He immersed himself in

Political Economy and the study of social problems, and sat at the feet

of the Professors. He went for miles tramping through mean streets,

studying conditions and people. He marched along country roads and

noticed the empty and wasted fields, weed-choked streams, and infinite

other opportunities for national well-being lost.

Frequently Bim went with him. For his own rest and comfort the gnome

furnished Geoffrey's Homburg hat with a fairy hammock and gossamer

sleeping-suit. His lordship became a walking bedroom, entertaining for

hours, just over his brainpan, a distant cousin of Puck.

Geoffrey became eager to do something, to create something, to make life

richer for his having lived. He thought of many possible occupations,

chiefly mechanical; he felt he ought in his circumstance to do something

quite contrary to his rule, something grimy and disagreeable. It

ended--after some loose-ends of effort--by his remaining satisfied to

prepare for Parliament. So he continued to absorb fustily-immortal

works on the sciences of wealth and government, and practised the

writing of pithy pamphlets and the delivery of orations--addressing "Mr.

Speaker" and mighty demonstrations in the solitude of his bedroom.

In November the seat he was destined to, became vacant. The writ for an

election could not be issued till after Parliament had reassembled in

February; so, meanwhile, he must wait, and woo the suffrages of his

future constituents.

He went to Armingham Castle, canvassed and took tea with several and

sundry, kissed babies, opened bazaars, delivered a series of addresses

of a pleasant Buff colour. The fairies were not with him then; they

left that particular campaign alone. The burgesses he was to represent

liked him well enough. They regarded him as a nice, handsome, earnest

youth, whose speeches might well have contained more personalities and

fewer figures, but who was safe and his cheques generous. He would do,

was the burden of general opinion.

The fairies knew well that he would--when he was wanted.

Life drifted on, till signs of the approach of Christmas began to

appear. June saw, in the window of the public-house by Paradise Court,

a bill which advertised Peace, Goodwill, and a Goose-club. That set her

thinking. She put on her crown and considered.

She sent out a trumpeter and called a fairy-conference. Every elf came

from his pillar-box to sit on her roof and consult.

Three more recruits from Fairyland appeared at the assembly. The stars

heard the ring of their welcome.

A plan of campaign was decided upon. The elves became still busier.

They spent more time perched on human heads, stimulating good thoughts

during those Advent weeks, than ever before. Men and women began to

think of Christmas as Dickens did--but without the hot brandy.

The great occasion was approaching. The Clerk of the Weather took it

into his official head to send something seasonable. It became cold and

bracing; roofs, walls, and the roads--so long as the traffic would let

them--were elegantly robed with snow. Ordinarily that snap of cold

would have roused a wail and a grumble; but not this year--thanks to

June and Company. The seasonable weather was taken as a further excuse

for human kindness. The wail was not heard because the want, its cause,

was removed. As for the grumble, there was so much good-nature in the

improved world that to grumble was impossible, except for old soldiers

who had made a habit of it.

There was to be no hunger in England during that Christmastide; and for

the poor who tramp, none but actual marchers in the wooden-leg brigade

were to be without a pair of comfortable sound boots.

Such facts as these prove better than any mere words of pen with what

reality the purposes and ideals of the fairies had been accepted.

And--this to satisfy rigid economists and the mighty individualist--it

was all done by voluntary subscriptions. There!

Houses and streets were decorated as they should be. There were

archways of flags; but paper flowers were properly tabooed. No fairy

could tolerate that kind of drivel. Lamp-posts were wreathed with

holly; bunches of mistletoe hung at street-corners. Kissing became

popular again. Old maids, whose hearts had been starved for years and

years, grew gracious and watched for bearded policemen.

Every window and window-sill was decked with laurel and moss. Chinese

lanterns were hung over gates and under porches. Lighted lamps with

coloured shades shone through uncurtained windows, so that when night

fell every street and roadway became an illuminated avenue. Next-door

neighbours, who for years had taken obvious pains to be mutually

indifferent, exchanged greetings of good cheer, and admired each other's

decorations.

June, who had felt some awe for the high-collar pride of little

Londoners, seeing this triumph of geniality, this evidence of the

lessening of two-penny vanity, sang joy-songs, and encouraged her

comrades. They followed her lead with whoo-whooping! What a time!

Then the newspapers and the pulpits began to speak. A great project was

evolved and set in being. There must be in every district--the press

panjandrums declared with elf-induced unanimity a Christmas supper,

after the good old jolly style. Funds were started to save any call

upon the rates. Gifts of edibles, drinkables, and current coin rolled

in.

Mayors and councillors, workers in churches, chapels, conventicles of

all sorts, and of no sort; political women and plodding housewives;

dukes' sons, cooks' sons, sons of belted earls with their sisters and

their cousins and their aunts; my Lady Bountiful and my lady who

scrubs--these with all and sundry came together in a spirit of splendid

camaraderie to consider ways and means of establishing the Christmas

joy-feasts.

Town-halls, village rooms, and other suitable places in all parts of

England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were made ready for the great

celebration. Mountains of food and rivers of delectable liquid were

prepared. Chefs, professional, amateur and very amateur, went to work

with a will. Localities bragged of their poultry and puddings. Small

boys walked about with glistening eyes; small girls, telling their

evening toll of fairy stories, got into the habit of ending their "happy

ever afterwards" with the assurance that not a year passed without the

wedded prince and princess having a Christmas supper with their people.

'Twas bliss to be alive. Scrooges a thousand-fold were converted

wholesale. The fairies, all were working during the entire twenty-four

hours of the day; and somehow--somehow they actually managed to squeeze

into that ordered period of time an additional twenty minutes. How it

was done they only know. Really, they are wonderful--those fairies!

Nevertheless, despite this general agreement of feeling, and

unprecedented flow of goodwill, a few exalted persons and their

imitators had managed to keep apart from it. They were but a few here

and there, but the fact of their silent opposition was painful. There

were blots on the jollity.

The Duke of Armingham was not one of them. His Grace, during that period

of preparation, seemed to return to youth. His energy was wonderful.

He became adept at hammering tacks, and probably nailed up more Goodwill

mottoes than anyone else of his years. It was he who devised the plan

of plastering dead walls with red and green cartoons, representing

prominent men and women of all parties, sects, and classes united in the

goodwill of Christmas.

His posters added considerably to the brightness and humour of the

streets. But the Duke went just a little too far; though, in the

Pepysian phrase, it did one's heart good to see him scuttle round a

corner, after having pasted a picture to the front-door of a leading

militant suffragist.

He used to come home after the midnight hour, as trembling and wide-eyed

as the triumphant Brer Rabbit; his hands and clothing a-muck with

bill-stickery. No mischievous bad boy could have been more happily

guilty than he; and the way he put on his pince-nez to brazen it out

before the Duchess, would have been a picture for Keene.

Certainly the Duke was not of the ungracious elect; but, alas, just as

assuredly his Duchess was! Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss and her glistering

circle of human dross also remained significantly apart from the general

rejoicing and good-fellowship.

June determined to concentrate her attentions on the Duchess.

It was the week before Christmas. The fairy preened herself carefully,

for who would conquer must wear nice clothes. Bim placed the crown upon

her head and then clambered to the tip-top chimney-pot above Paradise

Court to watch her, as a flash of flower-light, journeying towards the

vanquishing of that opponent.

As June flew, she rejoiced at the sights beneath her. London was now

rich with areas of sweetness and light--the reward of her influence.

Old blemishes and ugliness were for ever removed; colour and beauty

reigned. It was a sight for tired fairy eyes. The great metropolis was

positively handsome.

One by one, fairies who felt they deserved a holiday flew up and

followed her, so that by the time she arrived at Armingham House a train

of twenty attended her. The more the merrier! They were a jovial

company.

The fairies settled on the steps by the great closed door. June opened

it. One touch of wand and it swung back obediently. The Armingham

butler, then coming down the inside stairs, gaped with amazement.

"My gracious!" he exclaimed. "Them fastenings are done for."

He shut the door with a slam, reopened it and examined the lock. All

seemed in trim. He tugged at his left whisker--sign of wine-cellar

perplexity. "The world nowadays is getting that rummy," he

soliloquized. "I dunno! Those bloomin' fairies, I suppose."

So it was. Many a true word is spoken in bewilderment. The

elves--delighted to hear this tribute, however involuntary, to their

effectiveness--joined hands, raced and sang in a ring about him. They

were mad with happiness, jollier far than legendary grigs and sandboys.

The butler stood in the centre of the marble hall in a maze of

indecision, yet at the same time strangely pleased, till their romp was

ended. Then with a shriek of joy, which his clay ears were incapable of

hearing, the fairies clambered about him. From his waist upwards they

clung to him; made him their vehicle. June sat enthroned on his

baldness. He was an honoured man.

As he went upstairs, Sparks, the Duchess's maid, happened to pass down

them. She saw his smiling face, and crowsfeet of kindliness, not often

visible, about his eyes.

"La! Mr. Gootle, what's this?" she asked.

"Company for her Grace, Sparks," he answered, pompously.

The lady's-maid stared, then ran on giggling. "Gootle's got 'em!" she

murmured, not untruthfully. She saw possibility for sniggering gossip

when she reached the housekeeper's room.

The Duchess was in the library going through her visitors' list,

deciding on the guests to be invited to her next dinner-party, writing

the names of the selected on a large half-sheet.

The butler entered the library. At once the fairies descended from him

and clustered about the Duchess and the writing-table.

Gootle was suddenly aware of the fact that his entrance was purposeless.

The object that had taken him there had departed. He struggled with his

brains to think of a reasonable excuse for the intrusion.

"Yes, Gootle?" the Duchess inquired.

"Ahem, your Grace, the--front-door flew open."

The Duchess laid down her pen and--looked.

"Really, Gootle! Should I have been troubled with that?" Her glance

was ominous.

"Very sorry, your Grace, very sorry," he mumbled, fluttering his hands

like flappers, and withdrew. He felt slapped. He wanted to kick

himself. "Mass! hass! hass!" he soliloquized. "What did I do that for?"

He paused on the stairs. "Them bloomin' fairies!" he said again.

June and her companions were ripe for their form of usefulness. They

did nothing for the time, but sat silently, perched picturesquely on the

table, mantelpiece, chandeliers and bookcases, while the Duchess

continued the selection and completed her list.

She drew a line to indicate that it was ended.

June touched the pen. The Duchess scrawled through the line, in effect

deleting it, and wrote an additional name.

"Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss." Then she drew a second line.

She frowned and wondered at herself. She ran her pen along the

intrusive name to cancel it, but made no mark; the ink was dry. Her

frown was repeated.

The Duchess jabbed her pen into the inkpot, dipping viciously; and then,

instead of using it to complete the cancelling of the offending name,

wrote a letter. She did not even use the form of the third person.

"DEAR MRS. MOSS,

"I have not exactly the pleasure of your acquaintance, but my son

Geoffrey has on more than one occasion enjoyed your hospitality, and has

spoken to me about your kindness to him. Will you give me the pleasure

of knowing you? If you could spare the time to take tea with me here

to-morrow at four o'clock, I should be very glad.

"I shall look forward to seeing you then, unless I receive a note or

telephone-message to the contrary.

"Yours sincerely,

"EDITH ARMINGHAM."

She found the address in the Red Book, sealed the envelope, rang for

Gootle, and despatched the invitation.

Then she rustled to the fireplace and looked at the flames.

"Now why--why did I do that?"

There was no answer. The fairies looked at each other and laughed.

Then they made slides on the lid of the piano.

The Duchess was angry.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*A COMPACT*

The brougham which bore the delighted but highly nervous Mrs. Barnett

Moss to Armingham House set her down before the door at two minutes to

the hour. To be two minutes better than punctual was one of the iron

rules of the millionaire; his wife remembered it when paying an

advantageous call. As the clock in the boudoir struck four she entered

the presence.

June also was there. Her companions of yesterday had returned at dawn

to their posts of duty, the pillar-boxes; but Bim she had fetched, in

measure to supply their places.

The elves had made a night of it, and what a night!

Every room, corner and cranny in the great establishment had been

visited and explored. The butler's pantry they exulted in--to this day

Gootle does not know who put the salad-dressing into his particular

whisky. The conservatory was for a time transformed. The flowers

within it lost their lethargy, and knew again gladness of life. The

fairies played hide-and-seek among the shelves and statuary of the

library. The dining-table, whereon June had danced on the night of her

debut at Armingham House, was in the evening used for many series of

fairy rounds--the full score of princely people tracing triumphant

dances around and about their leader and lady.

Only Geoffrey Season and his mother were dining at home that night, so

there was ample room for the elves to disport in. The butler and his

footmen four, looking solemnly at the damask emptiness, were puzzled

by--they knew not what! There seemed to be things there, filling the

emptiness, that never were there. O dear! A strange world!

Geoffrey was the person most strongly impressed by the atmosphere of

enchantment. His conversation shone with unusual brightness, it bubbled

with happiest effervescence; but the Duchess, conscious of the amazing

invitation to, and certain coming on the morrow of, the millionaire's

wife, was far down in the glooms, weighed down with the dumps. She

could not bring herself to tell even her son of that incomprehensible

accident; and went to bed early, giving Sparks an unheavenly time.

The hours of Faerie came. When the moon was throwing a silver bar over

the blue silk coverlet; when stars peeped through the windows; when the

night-light's tiny flame was modestly gleaming; when her Grace's

breathing made music in the room; then fairies, a score and one, might

have been seen flitting about the bed and before the mirrors, swinging

on silver fittings, clinging to tapestry hangings, sleeping placidly,

sharing the laced pillow with the Duchess of Armingham.

And so for the night we leave that company of immortals and their

quarry, and come to the important to-morrow.

The Duchess woke with a light heart; and, when Sparks brought the

morning tasse, was inclined to carol.

The maid saw the unwonted gleam of geniality, precisely at the moment

when her mistress remembered Mrs. Moss. Sparks watched the glow of

kindness fade, die, and the Duchess become herself again.

The state of high-born sulkiness did not last long. June, except for

the hour of siesta wherein she returned to Paradise Court to fetch Bim,

was constantly beside the Duchess. She spent the whole of that day in

preparing the atmosphere for a great conversion. Her magic permeated

every part of and person in the great house--from boudoir to boot-boy.

Her influence, so real and sweetly haunting, affected the Duchess

deeply. She still kept a proud face, but inwardly was sorely inclined

to surrender and give herself to the fairies. Her heart was converted

already, but still she steadily resisted the new tendencies.

The Duchess was one of the obstinate company who insist on dying in the

last ditch.

Acute dislike at having to entertain Mrs. Moss was the obstacle which

blocked the fulfilment of her good intentions. Yet that involuntary act

of hospitality was an essential step in the progress of Fairydom. It

was necessary for June to govern the will of the Duchess in an affair

that mattered, and to conquer a great prejudice; but at this stage of

progress the prospect seemed retarding the march. Her Grace fought hard

against the better inclinations. She was afraid of vulgarity. That was

the principal fear. She had heard so much of Liberty Hall and its

parties--though not in an unkind way--from Geoffrey.

Mrs. Moss, for her part, also was fighting a battle--against strange

nervousness. Ushered in by Gootle, she smiled painfully, mournfully

shook her head, and said "How-do!" The Duchess received her with icy

graciousness.

The tea in the beginning was a commonplace festival; June knew better

than to make her puppets talk seriously during its earlier stages. It

was necessary for the Duchess to thaw somewhat; for Mrs. Moss to recover

confidence. They must have pause.

They had it, and discussed nonentities and silken politics.

At last June felt the opportune time for action had come. She popped

her crown upon the Duchess's head, while Bim, armed with the wand, made

himself comfortable in Mrs. Moss's narrow lap.

December was suddenly turned to May. Awkwardness went, geniality

prevailed. The Duchess no longer wondered at having given the

invitation, or spent suspicious thoughts on her visitor. Everything was

natural, kind, and proper. June had won at last.

"I am very glad you came, Mrs. Moss," she said heartily; "there is so

much I want to talk to you about."

"It's very good of you to say so, dear Duchess," was the enthusiastic

answer.

Bim flourished the wand to stem a current of gush. Mrs. Moss pursed

lips and waited.

The Duchess in her brain was wondering what next her tongue would say.

"Have you ever wondered," she asked, "how strange it is that people

should go through life, and wilfully refuse to become better acquainted?

Why should there be barriers between us or any people? Caste,

class-distinctions, are merely artificial. 'The rank is but the guinea

stamp,' said Mr. Burns, the poet--it was quoted by the _Morning Post_

yesterday, in a striking article on 'The Aristocracy of Elfdom.'"

"Was it?" said Mrs. Moss, who was puzzled at this line of talk.

"Yes, and it is true."

"Oh, Duchess, if--if a Duchess says so; but I shouldn't have

thought----" was the stammering reply.

The poor lady was bewildered. Armingham's Duchess had been in good

report and ill, especially ill, the proudest of the proud; fair game and

a favourite target for the derision and admiring envy of the merely

smart. A thousand stories, increasing with piquancy as they aged, had

been set afloat in illustration of her arrogance. Thousand-leaved

fictions had blossomed about her. Her origin and upbringing were the

kernels of many pretty tales. If rancour wished--as rancour frequently

did wish--to hurl epithets at the coroneted caste, five to one the

Duchess of Armingham was its pet Aunt Sally. No one in Society had been

more pilloried, abused, and envied. The spite and verisimilitude of the

attacks were quickened and strengthened by the supreme, unaffected

indifference with which her Grace had disregarded them.

Mrs. Moss, although she made social use of Geoffrey, had taken her share

in throwing the garbage of scandal. She had often seen the Duchess on

her drives through the Parks, and would have given much for a bowing

acquaintance with her; but as that was not to be, she, in sheer chagrin,

helped to increase the yellow stream of disparagement.

And now the longed-for impossible was happening--this great lady, this

enviable aristocrat, this butt for the diatribes of the little, this

queen of the exclusive few, was seated familiarly with her, entertaining

her, talking easily of democracy, aristocracy, equality.

No wonder Mrs. Moss was bewildered. She pinched herself to be sure it

was not one of her dazzling dreams. Bim, to fortify the reality,

pinched her too. Yes, there could be no doubt. She could feel it was

true.

"A Duchess, you say?" and the hostess smiled sadly. "The world is

mistaken when it thinks a woman of rank is to be envied."

"But the privileges!"

"The privileges, Mrs. Moss? The responsibilities of station, I assure

you, outweigh them far. Familiarity is apt to render them mere

nuisances. What privileges do you particularly refer to?"

The guest in her turn smiled. It was something of a pitying smile--ah,

the wisdom of the worldlings! How much the dear Duchess must have been

misunderstood!

"Why, the entry everywhere. I guess the folk who shut their doors on a

Duchess would soon be inmates of Bedlam. You can talk as a partner with

any of the people at the top, can't you? The wealthiest, proudest houses

welcome you."

"Is that a great privilege?" she was answered. "I confess I find the

social round dull--unutterably dull, with its receptions and dinners,

when you must attend them."

"I wish you and the Duke would honour my house one evening," Mrs. Moss

ventured to say. "I warrant you wouldn't find our parties dull."

"Ah, my son Geoffrey"--she remembered only the milder stories about

Liberty Hall--"has told me of some pleasant little parties at your

house."

A pang went through the lady of Liberty Hall.

"So that is how he described them!" thought she. Praise so comparative

stabbed her. She was aggrieved and nearly brought to angry tears. Only

a few days earlier a weekly paper without a circulation had--for a

consideration--filled two columns with an illustrated description of her

latest affair, giving a long list of invited guests with swollen names,

and now--now--now! to have it referred to as a "pleasant little party"!

It was galling!

Bim, thinking she needed it, pinched her again.

Meanwhile, the Duchess was calmly talking pure democratics, to the much

amusement of June. The crown was working with a vengeance. Its

impotence in that particular case was ended. Six months of incomplete

success, commencing with absolute failure, had ended with this result.

No wonder the fairy and the gnome were feeling cock-a-whoop!

Victory--absolute Victory--was advancing.

The Duchess became serious. She arrived at the fairy's purpose, and

believed it to be her own.

"Are you a democrat, Mrs. Moss?" she asked, and put her lorgnette to her

eyes in order to see, as well as to hear, the answer.

Every nerve and atom of the vain and selfish lady quivered in protest at

such a question.

"No, madam, that I am not," was the decided answer.

"Dear, dear!" sighed the Duchess.

"I left all pretty fancies over yonder. Mr. Barnett Q. Moss and I are

emphatically not anything so silly!"

"You left them over yonder?"

"Yes, we did!"

"In the United States?"

"In the U-nited States of America!"

"Dear, dear!" said her Grace again.

June was now on the Duchess's shoulder, nestling in soft folds of Irish

lace. She sat up eagerly, the better to hear the discourse.

"I am a democrat, Mrs. Moss!" the remark came sharply, like a shot.

"No, no, Duchess! Impossible!" The poor lady, in sheer amazement,

nearly shrieked the protest. Her appeal made the teacups shiver. In her

mind's eye she saw the Duchess waving a red flag, and bawling for rights

for somebody.

"Yes, a democrat!"

Mrs. Moss shuddered, and squeezed her mimic handkerchief into a ball.

She pressed her lips tightly together, and listened with horror.

"Yes, a democrat--one who believes that all human beings should

endeavour to give each other equal opportunities. I did not always

think this. Dear me, let me confess, I did not think it even yesterday.

Something has happened, something is always happening. The world seems

getting topsy-turvy; no, not that; but certainly nearer the stars,

without being farther from the flowers. Mrs. Moss, I was a proud and

unkind woman until yesterday. But from the instant I penned my

invitation to you, my old pride, my old--yes, I must say it--arrogance,

obstinacy, emptiness of heart, gradually went from me. It is like a

conversion. I am changed, and--a humbler woman. I recognize now, as I

have not done hitherto, my personal limitations, and the wrong I do my

fellow-creatures when I enjoy great good fortune without making any

return to mankind for it."

The Duchess was dreamily silent for a little while. A mist was before

her eyes. It seemed as if a cold mist had been removed from about her

heart. She was no less the great lady for having discovered her older

isolation to have been a condition poorer far than this realization of

sisterhood with the rest of mankind.

Mrs. Moss did not venture on any answer. She was in a curious condition

of mixed emotions. Now and then, while her hostess had been talking she

had wondered whether some of the words used were intentionally barbed

and edged. Why had the Duchess's old pride begun to diminish when she

penned the invitation to her? Was that Miching Malecho? Did it mean

mischief?

Mrs. Moss fell into a brown study pondering this littleness. She was no

fool; her personality was not quite all vanity, joy in wealth, and greed

for pleasure. She had a methodical brain, and possibly a heart

somewhere under her corsets. The words addressed to her were effectual.

"You have not been negligent," at last she remarked gently. "Your name

and the Duke's are on all charity lists. You help good objects with

what they ask for--money."

The Duchess shook her head.

"It was always a proud giving. That charity did not come from kindness,

it came from pride."

"No, Duchess; you are taking an unfair advantage of yourself."

"I think not, Mrs. Moss. But I need not talk penitence now. If

this--this tendency holds me to-morrow, as I can truly say I hope it

will, I shall do better by expressing it in deeds. I want now, if you

please, to speak with you on a more serious question, and to invite your

co-operation."

Mrs. Moss wriggled. "It is coming!" she told herself. This sounded so

like the familiar prelude to a begging appeal.

She was agreeably disappointed. The Duchess did not even look the word

purse-strings, but still required something that involved sacrifice.

"You have, of course, heard of these municipal Christmas festivities?"

she asked.

"Only vaguely!" was the airy answer.

"But the papers have been full of them!"

"I only read certain pages of certain papers--in Society one must be

careful; but, yes, I have heard something about them--sufficient to know

that they are amusements for the many, not for the few. I belong to the

few."

"They are for all," murmured the Duchess.

"Then I fear I can take but little interest in them."

Bim raised the wand vindictively; June motioned him to wait. He obeyed.

"I am sorry to hear you say so!" The Duchess was shocked at this

amazing indifference, being herself possessed of the convert's

earnestness.

"Oh!"

There was a weight of meaning in the interjection. Not for the eighth of

an instant had Mrs. Moss dreamed that the supremely exclusive Duchess of

Armingham could truly sympathize or co-operate in those corporate

efforts. She knew, only too well, that the "certain pages" she

condescended to read had mentioned the Duchess as one of the dissentient

minority, and because of that very abstention had herself refrained from

joining the movement, and had infected her followers with a similar

intention.

Now had come a new change. Her keen, shrewd wits were absolutely

bewildered. What should she do? She answered her question by doing

nothing, by listening.

"I am sorry to hear you say so," the Duchess repeated, "because it is a

unique effort on the part of all. Never before have we had such a union

of people of all degrees and classes, as are joined in making this

effort."

"But--but--forgive me, Duchess--surely you?" The question was not

verbally completed, but it shone in the lady's eye.

"Were recently not in sympathy with the movement?"

"Yes, Duchess, that is my inquiry put into plain English."

"I confess that is so. It was wrong of me to decide as I did, but it is

never too late to mend. I am going to help now with all my powers, as my

husband has done. Will you join and help too? My request to you to

come and meet me to-day was directly due to my zeal for the movement.

('Dear me!' thought the Duchess. 'Was that so?') It seemed such a pity

that so noble and practically unanimous an effort should be ignored by

anyone who could help it--especially by people of standing." The

flattery, though unintended, was not without effect. "I knew you did

not purpose to participate in it; neither did I. I have changed my

mind, and given up my unsocial intention. Will you, Mrs. Moss?"

"No, Duchess, I cannot!"

"I am sorry you say so, but why?"

"It would make me the laughing-stock of my set."

June motioned to the gnome. He clung to a hanging watch-chain, and held

the wand to the recalcitrant lady's lips. She resisted its power. Her

mouth was obstinate.

"Surely not, Mrs. Moss. I have heard you are the social queen of an

influential following. Those people, whoever they are, would surely come

with you, and so render our festivity representative and complete."

More flattery, insidious and unintentional--such tactics being as

foreign to the Duchess as grease-paint. Oh, those fairies, the

diplomatists!

"It seems so unreasonable. So like--so like a scene in a pantomime or

fairy-play."

"Exactly, that--that is the joy of it!"

June, delighted, kissed the Duchess.

"It is against reason and common-sense!"

"Oh no, Mrs. Moss. It is the best kind of reason, and is absolute

common-sense!"

"But, please tell me; it's beyond me--what good can the meeting, in such

manner, of all sorts of people--noble and shady folk--do?"

"Every kind of good. It will teach the reality of human brotherhood,

and tend to make the shady folk--and the noble folk--nobler."

"To be utterly forgotten on the morrow!"

"I think not. I hope not. Once get representatives of all classes and

conditions to meet in considerate fraternal intercourse, dining together

fifty at one table, and gulfs of mutual suspicion, indifference,

dislike, will be crossed never, I hope, to be completely divided again.

It is a great idea, hazardous at first, daring always, but now

reasonable and most promising. A real step forward in human progress. A

large fact of hope."

Her Grace was eloquent. The fairy crown had certainly worked wonders.

Mrs. Moss hesitated still, and Bim lowered the wand with despair. A

thick crust of vanity and pride in material things had to be dissolved.

She pursed her lips obstinately, and looked at the fire. June thereupon

flew across and dumped the crown on her head.

It worked.

"Yes, on consideration, I agree," was the declaration. "I shall be

delighted to co-operate. It will mean money--never mind that! My

husband and I can afford to give. It will mean service--devoted

service. That, too, shall be gladly given by both of us. It is an

object worth living for! I will come, and make my friends come, too;

but, Duchess"--June removed the crown, and herself donned it--"I must

make one condition, please."

"Yes?"

"That you and the Duke come to my New Year's party!"

"If you will invite us--with pleasure!"

"I do invite you--now!"

"Then I accept."

So the compact was made.

When the Duchess and Mrs. Moss were at last alone, each asked herself

this question: "What is the world coming to?"

June knew. Bim knew. Oberon in Fairyland had an inkling.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*NEW YEAR'S DAY*

Croakers croaked, of course, but the Christmas Festival, accomplished,

was a great success, and no one enjoyed it more than the croakers--when

they knew themselves unnoticed. It was a roaring win for optimists.

The expectations were everywhere excelled. The dinner was worthy of the

intention. The conversations, music, songs, and games, went with a

ring. Not a dissentient note was heard. High and humble, rich and

poor, met for that occasion as comrades, and the good effects of their

coming together remained. The world was, henceforward, better humoured,

gentler, more considerate than ever it had been.

It was a triumph to fairies and to the less fortunate folk who are

human. There let us leave it!

New Year--the Feast of Good Resolutions--arrived with its loads of

customary high intentions. That day brought an opportunity which the

fairies meant to make the most of. But the task was not entirely easy,

for old habit would be potent.

A New Year's resolution in the past had generally, almost invariably,

two necessary distinct parts--the making and the breaking. That was its

history. If New Year's Day was the Feast of its Creation, Twelfth Night

might certainly be called the funeral day, belated. The building and

the forgetting of good resolutions had become such a time-honoured

process that each of the stages was as easy as breathing. Lightly

entered into, the intention could be even more lightly lost. That was

the fairies' difficulty. It would be simple enough to get people to

resolve well; but to prevent their having a Twelfth Night of

forgetfulness would be a task Titanic in comparison. Still, they must

try.

June, by means of her myrmidons, hunted up the ex-Lord Mayor, Sir Titus

Dods--now a baronet in the courts of Edward and Oberon--and caused him

to come from his retirement at Hampstead to lead in the particular

effort.

He induced every newspaper as its special New Year supplement to give

away an attractive card on which practicable good resolutions could be

written. The cards, inscribed, would be preserved until this New Year

was old and out. It was the Mansion House procedure of last May-time

repeated, spread over a very far wider area, destined to be similarly

successful.

A change came over casual converse. Instead of using such old phrases

and time-worn tags as "How d'ye do?" or "Cold day, isn't it?" people

greeting each other asked, "Resolutions going strong?"

It was surprising how much more interesting meetings became, and how

invariably the answer was "Yes." Self-respect struggled to attain the

affirmative answer.

So there was progress in all ways, splendid progress.

June's company was growing so rapidly--every hour of the night and day

bringing at least one recruit--that her mighty mimic ladyship was able

to concentrate attention on the so-called Smart Set. She remembered the

New Year's party to be held at Liberty Hall and went to it, taking a

regiment of elf-folk with her--Bim the only gnome.

The fairies clustered about the door and stairways, and made fun of the

white-headed footmen.

"Why did these voluminous mortals wear that mess?" The night was bright

with their satire.

Regularly and rapidly the company of guests arrived. They came with

their usual boisterousness, and then--and then----

The influence of the elves had a curious effect on hosts and on guests.

It proved strangely restraining. Barnett Q. felt like a Sunday-school

superintendent at a too-French French play, a humid pink of

uncomfortable propriety. Mrs. Moss was, as usual, nervously fluttered

with a new anxiety frightening her heart--how would her guests, destined

to bask in ducal radiance, behave?

Liberty Hall was metamorphosed. The noise, display, and wildness which

heretofore had made its functions famous were rapidly replaced by a

superfine straightness--a Bowdlerized bonhomie, self-conscious and

constrained. The rabble of Comus was muzzled.

Hoary sinners and flaxen-headed _mondaines_ were prim, simpering,

moralizing, painfully on their goodily-good behaviour. They were

nerve-fettered, with spirits weighed down. They knew it, they felt it,

and could not comprehend or complain. The fairies held them in thrall.

From the elves' point of view it was supremely funny. Those

spirit-masters of the revels laughed till many of them became bright

scarlet.

The Duke and Duchess of Armingham, accompanied by Geoffrey--who had done

his best to induce his mother not to go--arrived at ten. Mrs. Moss

breathed a sigh of relief. Now, come what might, her party was

justified. Whatever the ultimate verdict might be, Vanity Fair must

approve something. She had got the Duchess!

The new guests, followed by the fairies, trooped into the ballroom. The

band struck up a barn-dance, which was footed with decorum. Everybody

was surprised, the Duchess agreeably so.

The Duke put on pince-nez, and went in search of the prettiest possible

partner he could find. He had come to his second youth, and meant to

enjoy it. He found himself murmuring complimentary epigrams to Lalage

and Chloe, written by himself during college days when under the glamour

of Horace. He wondered if they would do.

Geoffrey talked of New-Year reforms to Barnett Q. with the seriousness

of a budding legislator, and remembered his previous experience at

Liberty Hall. What a difference! Then had been riot; this was the

other extreme. Where was the reason why?

The company consisted--he saw--mostly of the same people who previously

had wrought vulgar tumult there; every face was more or less familiar to

him; but their manners, hitherto blatant, were now positively

mealy-mouthed. Roaring lions expressed themselves with the modesty of

penny whistles. What did it mean? Bounders, ninnies, minxes had left

off their meannesses and become decently human.

Any attempt at vulgarity was instantly hushed and checked. Lame efforts

at ostentation were remorselessly snubbed. Geoffrey had learned several

things during the last few days; his eyes had been better opened. He

put this condition of strained propriety down to its right source, the

fairies; but her Grace, his mother, had also something to do with it.

Mrs. Moss was positive it was mainly due to the dear Duchess.

The coming of the Arminghams was certainly an event in the social

history of Liberty Hall. If it had not been for the strange sense of

constraint which held her, Mrs. Moss would have exulted, pleased as a

young redskin with his first scalp. As it was, she fluttered like a

nervous hen round an ostrich-egg, knowing she had not lived in vain.

It was the Duke who, the fairies willing, broke down the barriers of

undue restraint. The elf-atmosphere, which subdued the loud rich,

roused and awakened him. He was inclined to rollick. Breaking through

the established order of things, he induced Barnett Q. to start an old

country dance. The experiment took. Feet which earlier in the evening

had been lamely waltzing or half-heartedly two-stepping became lively

with Sir Roger de Coverley. It was a revolution, transformation

complete.

Clean simplicity came to people who had always deemed it folly to be

simple. Whole-heartedly the guests joined in the dance--they hurried to

take places in long laughing rows--the Duchess herself came down from

the proud mountains to go trotting through a smiling avenue with her

partner, Barnett Q. The fairies, too, made shimmering lines, and

improved on the movements of the human-folk. There were no more

unsocial or ugly dances that night. The party was for all the world

like one played by happy children.

Girls of blasee eighteen became young for the first time since they left

the nursery; gilded youths resisted tendencies towards brainless talk

and inelegant posing; oldsters, whose dyed hair and waxed moustaches

whispered grey stories, forgot affectations and selfishness; ladies of

middle age declined to be wall-flowers longer. They asked idlers to

partner them in a natural feminine way. Hilarity was alive. The

card-room was abandoned. Fairies were helping lovers along the happy

pathway. The clock most musically clanged twelve in sympathy.

"My love," declared Barnett Q., panting, to his wife, "this is the best

we have ever had."

"The dear Duchess!" said she. There was little credit for the fairies

from her.

The dance and the party went on, and momentarily grew brighter with joy.

Supper-time came. The meal was to have been a series of snacks, fizz

and rushes as usual; but June ruled otherwise. She had learned that the

time men are more likely to be serious, and are certainly most easily

influenced, is meal-time; so she ordained that the whole company of

guests should go to the supper-room together, and although this

necessitated some give-and-take and a great deal of squeezing--borne by

young couples with a patience beyond their years--it was managed. Plates

and cutlery were soon a-clatter, and the hum of happy conversation

arose. Meanwhile, the elves distributed themselves amongst the company.

Their time had come.

June, with Bim marching behind her, went along the tables to make sure

that her helpers were in their places. Wine-glasses were touched with

magic. The champagne sparkled with extra enchantment.

June danced back to her place at the head of the chief table, and rapped

the knuckles of Mr. Moss. He rose, raised a glass, and proposed a loyal

toast. It was drunk with cordiality. The company, sipping their wine,

absorbed magic.

"Now," he said, as June put the compelling crown upon him, "I'm going to

ask you to drink another toast, what I will call the toast of the

evening, 'The Fairies'!"

The outburst of enthusiasm that followed reminded June of the banquet at

the Mansion House. New wine, enchanted, was poured into glasses

wand-touched. The liquor carried fresh inspiration to the human lips.

"The Fairies! The Fairies! Oberon! Titania!" the guests cried.

June and Company--all except wingless Bim, who perforce must stay

squatting on a bunch of purple grapes--flew above and about, pouring

charms on the mortals; singing a song whilst flying which the men-things

nearly heard.

The flying procession went gaily trailing thrice round the room; then

the fairies dropped back to their proper places. The shouting now must

wait a while. June gave Barnett Q. a peremptory command. He was

obedient as a marionette.

"May I make a speech?" he asked his guests.

"You must!" was the unanimous answer.

He struck the attitude of oratory, and successfully overcame his

lingering tendency to Yankee mannerisms.

"As we age," he began sententiously, "not many of us really grow wiser.

So, if you please, we will--every one of us--be young again--and

immediately. That way, and that way only, can we do what the fairies

demand of us. Those careless youths, the children, have amazingly good

opportunities, if only they knew it."

"Go right on, Barnett!" counselled his wife, who, even in this swelter

of excitement, was keeping anxious eyes on the Duchess, hoping she would

not be bored. There was little fear of that happening, however bald the

new Moss philosophy might be.

The Duchess was, indeed, a fine picture of genial benevolence. She

beamed and, practically a presiding presence there, enjoyed something of

the satisfaction felt by a patron saint. Her former enemies would not

have known her had they dreamed of scrutinizing her in the old cruel

way.

"Are you in the mood for elf-wisdom?" the millionaire asked.

"We are!" Geoffrey answered, voicing the general feeling.

"Are you willing--ladies and gentlemen both--to be knights-errant, to go

on a quest for the sake of the fairies?"

"We are! We are!"

Every one of them--men and women, boys and girls--answered this time.

Would-be Britomarts and Calidores were plentiful as mushrooms in

October; but the Blatant Beast they were to pursue was their own

vanities, selfishness, vices. "Very well. The first requirement is that

you at once write on your dance-programmes some such resolution as this:

'Not a day in this new year shall pass without my having made someone in

the world happier by my works.' Phrase it as you please, my friends,

but don't mistake my meaning."

"But what kind of works?" asked Sir Gussie, the calculating and precise,

as he screwed in a heavy-rimmed monocle, to stare at this re-maker of

manners.

"Use your eyes, my boy, and decide for yourself," was the prompt answer.

"Look at the every-day sights of London, and then carry comfort to those

who need."

Barnett Moss was in his element. He was the born manager. He ruled

that assembly--by gracious permission of June--as effectually as he

would have dominated a Board meeting. He would carry this thing

through.

The pencils attached to the programmes were busily inscribing the fine

promise. The butler and footmen attending the table supplied cards to

those without them, and themselves surreptitiously wrote down similar

good intentions. June, gratified by this pleasant spirit of theirs,

made them a little better-looking--rather a good form of reward.

Enchantment was potent everywhere in the large excited room.

"Is it down?" Barnett asked. His little eyes glittered with excitement,

as they always glittered when he was governing a masterly transaction.

"It is," was after a while the general answer.

"Now how to keep it. May I ask the Duchess of Armingham to assist the

fairies in this?"

The Duchess bowed assent. The company clapped hands delightedly. Her

Grace seemed changed. Could that smiling presence be she who had for so

long been their bugbear? Many of that company, had they not been caught

by the glamour of the occasion, would have doubted their senses as to

her identity. The Duke poised his glasses and pursed his lips, studying

her. He hardly knew his own wife.

"Good!" commented Barnett Q., confirming her assent; "this is how the

Quest you knights are to follow shall be kept. Once every month, by

call or by letter, every person here who has made and signed this

promise must report to the Duchess its fulfilment; and let no one"--his

voice took on accents of tremendous seriousness--"let no one who, by

breaking this exacting resolution, proves unworthy, presume to darken

the doorsteps of Armingham House!"

There was a great flutter and babble of talk as the serious words and

their full purport sank into the minds of those addressed. To these

worldlings, even in this sublimer mood, no more acceptable bait could be

offered than the opportunity of a visiting friendship with the Duchess.

The front-door of Armingham House was to them as the entrance to

Paradise. To consort with such as she--a real leader of high-placed

people--was a passport to supreme society, worth achieving, worth

enjoying, worth retaining--the thing they most desired. It was the best

effective means for securing good behaviour and destroying vulgarity

that could be devised. But the Duchess, what did she think of this

definite proposal?

The Duke, in his shrewd mind, had a good deal of doubt about it. He

leaned forward to study the Duchess's face, to read her intention; and

was amazed. She rose to her feet to make pronouncement.

"I shall be willing and glad to do what Mr. Moss has asked of me. He is

the mouthpiece of the fairies, I understand that. I accept the task

from them; and shall be proud to number amongst my personal friends the

kind ones here who, by inscribing and signing their cards, as bidden,

have taken what may be called a vow of personal service, following the

quest of a social purpose. The first Tuesday afternoon in every month

will be my reception day, when in town or at Armingham Castle. Will my

new friends remember that?"

She resumed her seat. The interlude was ended. With new zest the

assembly returned to the ball-room, and enjoyed their games and play.

The artificial restraint that had held them earlier was gone. They had

become gentle.

Some of them began their Quest that very night.

Sir Gussie, to whom gambling had been a profitable passion, and cards

the first of pastimes, resolved in future to play for counters; and, as

amends for past misgains, went along a dingy street and dropped a

sovereign into five-and-twenty shabby letter-boxes.

Ladies'-maids, who, yawning and jaded, had waited till dawn for their

mistresses, were greeted with smiles and thanks--a welcome change from

the wonted shrill-tempered crossness which almost invariably had been

their recompense hitherto.

One bright youth--with the earnestness of a beginner, which even when

misguided is something splendid--devoted his powers to helping a drunken

man homeward. Another sparkling boy at once totted up a list of his

debts and made plans of economy whereby he might redeem them. Another

went off post-haste to write an apology to a family he--through

selfishness--had wronged. A fourth--Mr. Harris, a motorist, with whom

Geoffrey Season had half an acquaintance--vowed to walk five miles daily

for two months along a car-infested road, to see for himself what

road-hog tyranny meant.

And so on, and so forth, in all manner of ways, wise and unwise, but

always sincere and determined, the beginnings of the amelioration of the

Smart Set began.

It worked well, after a little while, as every movement launched by the

fairies is bound to do. The coming together of the sudden plutocracy

with true aristocrats had good effects--broadening and strengthening--on

both. It taught restraint, consideration, responsibility. Social

organizations increased in numbers, sway and influence. No hospital or

charitable purpose was now hampered for lack of funds. Processions of

the unemployed ceased to be. There were fewer children in the streets

of poverty: the childless rich had adopted them.

Humanity was linked closer, with cords of great kindness. No one was

better affected by it than the Duchess of Armingham. She remained

genial, a power persuasive; and grew in bounty, charm and kindness. She

felt something of a fairy queen herself.

So June won the stronghold. The poor and the rich, the weak, the proud

and the great, were with her now. She was leading a host, human and

immortal. Her madness was justified.

*CHAPTER XX*

*IN PARLIAMENT*

February arrived, succeeding a period of immense elf-activity. Mankind

was rapidly waking up to the improved condition of things; more and more

recruits were coming from Fairyland to keep men's purposes kind and

bright; the metropolis was cleaning itself vigorously, and putting on

colour, so that from all parts of the world people journeyed to its

streets, to gather aesthetic inspiration and delight.

Londoners realized at last that they were people of a majestic city,

that the grime and sordid ugliness which for ages had shrouded their

buildings veiled a world rich with poetry and beauty. With their civic

soul requickened, they studied and were proud of the thousand years of

living history--their heritage. They wore their hats with a cock.

Their stride lengthened. Their chins showed disdain for the gutter.

The ancient Romans, the Venetians and Florentines of medieval Italy,

were not more truly town-patriotic than were the inhabitants of the

rediscovered London.

February had arrived; and midway through the despised, misunderstood

month, the Houses of Parliament met. Writs to fill vacant seats were

moved for. Geoffrey Season was back at Armingham Castle, strenuously

electioneering, pursuing the last lap of his candidature.

The newspapers describe elections so well that it is not necessary for

this poor pen to tell the story of that particular battle between the

Buffs and the Blues. It is enough to state that the foreseen took

place--it is, despite the Disraelian dictum, nearly always the expected

that happens--Lord Geoffrey Season was put at the top of the poll,

defeating his Blue opponent, Mr. Tutherman, by a few less than seven

hundred votes, which was rather better than the average in that

constituency.

He arrived at the House of Commons, the youngest, and, therefore, the

most sanguine member of Parliament, ten days after the session had

commenced. He purposed determinately to carry into effect the projects

of the fairies.

When he was introduced to the Commons and took his seat, the Debate on

the Address was still proceeding turgidly. Progress struggled feebly

against a stream of talk.

June and Bim entered the House with Geoffrey; and as nowadays she went

hardly anywhere in public without the accompaniment of a self-appointed

bodyguard, full fifty fairies grouped around her. Queenly was her state

as she surveyed, from the vantage-ground of the clock, the languid,

sprawling gentlemen who comprised the House. For quite a time the elves

watched the proceedings. They were amused and puzzled by many things;

it would be inappropriate here to detail precisely what these were.

Then gradually the fairies grew bored; the infinite stream of talk went

on and on. The light of their presences faded. Their glory was

dwindling. Their strength, which is expressed in brightness, was

gradually diminishing.

This wouldn't do! June roused herself, and gave Bim a push which sent

him spinning and then sprawling on the floor of the House below. He rose

indignant at this treatment, strode with his stiffest dignity to the

table, and, with a spring and some effort, perched himself astride the

mace.

From that moment the Commons began to be transformed. The fairies

resumed their brightness, and shone with light which would have dazzled

humanity had eyes of clay been able to realize immortal glories. The

clock stopped--its mechanism was more atune to elf-influence than that

of the prose-builders below. Members--for no particular reason that

they knew--came trooping in; and within ten minutes every green bench on

the floor of the House and in the galleries was packed.

June spread her wings, and flew over the heads of the legislators. Her

companions followed her example. With wands they tapped the mighty

brows of legislators, and prepared their minds for obedience. Members

wearing hats were poked in the nape of the neck. All--without

exception--were inoculated with magic. The Irish party became a little

uproarious, and effectively facetious.

The stream of prose went on.

June gave Bim her wand, and bade him take the chair. He gravely

clambered along the Treasury table, came to the trio of clerks, and,

after bowing with due respect thrice, according to usage--his seat on

the mace had touched him with Parliamentary decorum--the intrepid

adventurer climbed the Speaker's robes and squatted soberly upon his

wig. The dignity of Parliament was enhanced.

The gnome knew he was making history, so he took care to keep awake.

Mr. Speaker began to feel strangely nervous, to have forebodings--as if

an unexpected precedent was about to be established.

Meanwhile the stream of prose went on. The present malefactor was ----,

but his name shall not be immortalized! This is all I will say, O

reader: he was of the opposite school of politics to you. Even members

on his own side of the House began to be impatient. A few cried

"'Vide!" but only feebly. His misdoing was condoned by the general

indifference.

He went on lamenting and lamely protesting that the Government in the

King's Speech had not included a Bill to regulate Charity Bazaars, and

was endeavouring to institute a comparison with the social system of the

ancient Assyrians. His peroration had been misplaced; he had begun with

it. He had reached his seventhly. There were no signs of the

approaching end, no means whatever of computing when that might be. He

merely went on. His speech was like a long and muddy road on a splashy

wet night.

June crowned Geoffrey. Obediently he rose.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, with the gesture that practice in the bedroom

had made perfect. "This intolerable flow of drivel----"

"Order! Order!" cried a hundred voices.

The interrupted orator turned round to stare at Geoffrey with eyes of

angry surprise.

Intervention came from the proper place. The Speaker was on his feet.

Bim clung to the wig to prevent his displacement.

"The noble lord," said Mr. Speaker, in his most conciliatory and

compelling manner, "is so young a member of the House that he merits

every indulgence; but I must remind him that to interrupt an honourable

member in any other way than by rising to a point of order is a serious

breach of the procedure and order of this House."

Geoffrey had, of course, resumed his seat immediately the Speaker rose;

but, authority having spoken, the crown would no more let him sit still,

acquiescent, than it had allowed any of its human wearers to remain

their normal selves. He rose again.

A tornado of cries of "Order!" greeted Geoffrey's further involuntary

breach of obedience.

June flew across to the Speaker.

Old Parliamentary hands turned to look at their new colleague. His

further breach of order was done with perfect manner. There was no

shouting vulgarity about his interruption, but a definite purpose,

pleasantly expressed. They rapidly summed him up. He was well-looking,

well-dressed, good House-of-Commons form, yet with a refreshing look of

determination in his eyes. Far within themselves the veterans began to

admire and to wonder. Geoffrey's debut, they felt, was full of promise;

it marked a man of the future as surely as the Hartington yawn had done.

"He will do," they said; "impudence and brains." That was their verdict

in the beginning. Shrewd were those front-benchers, but they did not

quite know Geoffrey.

"May I apologize, Mr. Speaker, and explain----"

"I decline to give way," declared the important person whose pomposity

and portentous drivel had provoked the elves' interruption.

"'Vide! 'vide!" cried a Labour man, merely in mischief.

June kissed the Speaker. Without blushing, yet with perfect grace and

modesty, in the interests of true progress, she kissed him; while Bim,

lying full length along the top of his wig, pressed the wand against his

forehead, and willed him to do as the fairies required. Could any man

successfully resist such powers? No! Even the first of Commoners could

not.

The Speaker, as he stood waiting to deliver judgment, knew he was,

though dazed through the brightness, even clearer-headed than usual. He

was on the awesome edge of a precedent. He wondered how the decision

then to be given would be received; ordinarily it would have filled the

House with amazement, but the earlier inoculation with magic had already

begun to take effect. The Speaker was aware of strange powers and

presences about him.

The person of pompous prose, realizing that his dignity was endangered,

again cried a protest; but he was so far away from the sympathies of his

fellow-members--he had bored them so severely--that with clamour they

shouted him down. Thanks to the fairies, every single member in that

House hurled "Order!" at him.

Though technically quite in order, he was forced to subside. He felt

badly treated; he was badly treated: and serve him jolly well right!

During the whole of the subsequent scene--a glorious page in the new

English history--the nonentity sulked. Bim after a while went to sit on

his knee, endeavouring to charge him with the elixir of elfdom; but it

was difficult, at that stage of chronic self-esteem, for any good

influence to pierce the crust of prejudice, jealousy, and indignation

which bound him.

But the gnome went on making effort, and eventually did soften the pride

of that creature of grandiose pomposity.

June's kiss was momentous; it bore with it power. The Speaker

throughout his being trembled at her intangible touch; a smile, which

would have been seraphic had it not been for the wig, brightened and

gladdened his face.

The old Parliamentary hands glanced with swift inquiry at each other;

then centred their gaze on him. What was coming?

"This is an exceptional occasion," he ruled, in level, serious tones.

"It is an hour wherein a precedent may usefully be created. The noble

lord may make his explanation. The House will listen with attention."

To their own surprise, the members cheered. What they knew full well was

utterly wrong seemed to them then utterly right. Geoffrey was

encouraged in his fairy courses. The crown, pressed on his smooth

locks, filled him with elation of purpose. He felt as light-hearted and

confident as a skylark--as powerful as a steam-engine; potent, joyful,

energetic, controlling.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, "I must and do apologize sincerely to the

honourable member for interrupting him in the manner I was compelled to

do; but the protest I was forced to make was done in obedience to some

superior power. I feel--we all feel--that in these latter days new and

admirable forces have become effective in the national life."

"Hear, hear!" said the Leader of the Opposition.

"Ideals, opposed absolutely to many popular fixed opinions, are

prevalent. The reign of ugliness, selfishness, materialism, is

threatened by new and admirable influences. Old forms must modify

themselves to suit younger and nobler purposes. It was, and is, as the

spokesman of those powers that I have ventured so soon to intrude on the

attention of the House."

A murmur of approval ran round the benches. No party was quite silent;

the only individual who regarded Geoffrey with suspicion and coldness

was the victim whom Bim was sitting on, trying to melt.

"I do protest," Geoffrey went on, "and I shall continue to protest, on

behalf of progress and humanity, against the waste of public time

through mere talk. The House has listened for three-quarters of an hour

to the honourable member; and, I venture to say--with a further apology

to him--was in no way inspired or benefited by what he was saying. His

speech merely occupied time which is urgently required by the country

for the fulfilment of practical, national business. In the name of the

fairies, I assert--and the House will uphold me--that whenever an

honourable member, no matter where his seat may be, obstructs or even

wearies the House with a dull, dilatory, or unnecessary speech, I shall

move that some Bill which makes for social progress, whether it appear

on the paper or not, be immediately considered, shelving at once the

subject under discussion at the time. This will insure that, in a very

little while, what is publicly said will be worth saying, worth

listening to; and that true legislation will march. For the purpose of

preparing the House for this new course of progress--thank the fairies

for the idea, Mr. Speaker, don't thank me!--I respectfully inform you,

Sir, that I shall to-morrow bring in a Bill to abolish cemeteries, and

so to reform our burial customs, that God's acre may be a pleasant

garden, wherein people may contemplate immortality without being shocked

by pagan stone-ware and unhealthy tombs."

The House thrilled at the calm words which expressed such revolution of

methods. It was like suggesting that the world should be summarily

dissolved and rebuilt. Yet members heard it like lambs, though even

then one voice of interruption was raised.

A member who had entered the Chamber but a few moments before, and

therefore was bewildered by the impropriety of Geoffrey's action, and

astounded at the strained attention of the House, made formal inquiry.

"Is this in order, Mr. Speaker?"

"No," was the sharp reply, received in ominous silence. "The noble lord

is quite out of order, but he may continue!"

Such a volley of cheering rang out that the lights overhead, behind

their glass partition, shivered. A united sigh of satisfaction swelled

into sound. Members were relieved that the outbreak against convention

was not summarily stopped.

June kissed the Speaker again. She was proud, pleased, and grateful.

He who had raised the point of order--Mr. Wash, the member for

Somewhere--stared, staggered, subsided, squeezed himself into half a

seat, and soon found himself, too, under the spell of elf-influence and

in cordial sympathy with the reformer.

No more protests were made, then or thereafter, against Geoffrey's

irregular courses. He hurried along his fairy way, happily free. He

felt more like a skylark than ever. Admiration marched after him with

giant strides. In those moments of Parliamentary debut he was

establishing a reputation which years of official perseverance might

never have attained.

"Against useless speeches," he thundered, encouraged--the bedroom manner

was effective--"the fairies wage their war. They have commissioned me,

also, to declare their absolute disapproval of mere party politics."

There were murmurs of doubt here. The Irish party was even vociferous.

June waved the wand; the Speaker raised his hand; the sounds subsided

instantly. Never before had the Chair been so willingly obeyed.

"I know," said Geoffrey, "that the party system is a natural

development, that without it political life would lose much of its

vitality; but it has become a mockery, a nuisance, a mischief; it has

gone too far."

"Hear, hear!" said an arch obstructor, the brim of whose silk hat was

gay with five fairies.

A loud burst of laughter echoed his words. Saul was indeed among the

prophets. That arch obstructor was notorious for his tactics and skill

at the business. His moves were dictated solely by party means for

party purposes. They had caused more than one good movement, promising

the growth of national well-being, to be frustrated, injured or killed.

"I mean it!" he said emphatically, removing his hat to say so, and

thereby causing the five fairies to flutter, sparkling, for some moments

above him. Their radiance shone on his high bald brow. His fellow

members saw enough of the elf-brightness actually to think it the light

of his inspiration. They cheered a volley. Encouraged by this amazing

tribute, much of it from men who hitherto had not admired him, he vowed

secretly never, never, never again wantonly to hinder or harm a possible

good cause by obstructive tactics. Saul, better than a prophet now, had

become angelic.

"How many a Bill, supported by the most thoughtful members, in all parts

of this House, has been sacrificed to some supposed partisan advantage,"

Geoffrey continued. "The history of legislation, Mr. Speaker, is choked

with statesmanlike intentions, spoiled wantonly. That possibility must

not continue."

"Hear, hear!"

"It must not continue. The fairies have given the word. They must be

obeyed."

"Hear, hear! Hear, hear!"

"The party organizations, of course, must remain; general business still

must be conducted along party lines, for opposition is practically as

necessary as government; but the tendency to use party forces as an

insensate block must be checked. Hereby, Mr. Speaker, I respectfully

give notice that, while loyal to my party, the Buffs, I shall vote for a

good Bill promoted by the Blues whenever I think it is calculated

honestly to help the people. Buff or Blue, progress is much the same.

I stand for true progress. Will at least twenty members from every one

of the four parties in this House join with me, look with impartial

eyes, as I shall look, at any and all Bills presented to it, and make

efforts to pass them when their passage would be for the social good of

the nation?"

Voices from every bench on the floor of the House, as well as from the

parallel galleries above, cried accord with the intention. Geoffrey had

his lead.

"Then that is settled. We--this new National Party--will be strong

enough to help any Government, Buff or Blue, to carry good measures; and

strong enough to force reasonable amendments in otherwise desirable

Bills. We shall hold the balance of power, and progress will be made

along a middle way. Mr. Speaker, I have done! I thank the House for its

great consideration and courtesy to a new member. I have been listened

to with a kindness which proves the patriotism of this historic House.

I am proud so soon to have been permitted to suggest remedies for the

congested condition of public business, and, thanks to the sympathy of

honourable members, to have been enabled to devise means whereby causes

inspired by the fairies will triumph."

He resumed his seat. Excited applause broke out. Members waved their

hats. Three, at least, stood on the benches, the better to cheer.

Geoffrey Season was a made Parliamentary man.

The House hushed to hear its Leader. Gracefully leaning on a Treasury

box, he smiled a smile of philosophic doubt. Seeing this, June waved

command to a bevy of elf-princes, who forthwith transferred the crown

from Geoffrey's head to his. At once the smile broadened, its doubt

diminished, its philosophy increased.

"The House," said he, "has listened to the noble lord with considerable

interest and admiration; and rightly so. He is, it is true, a child in

these things; but out of unsophisticated mouths the best wisdom

sometimes comes. I am a House of Commons man myself, and any proposal

calculated to diminish, or actually to injure, the machinery of this

Chamber would be hotly resisted by me; but because a system has lasted a

great many years--as the party system has done--is that any reason for

its undisturbed continuance? My question must be answered in the

negative. I say No; and join with the noble lord in inviting honourable

members to look at all Bills with impartial eyes. The Government will

do its best to meet the views of the new National Party. I am inclined

to wish I could become a member of that party myself. I congratulate

the noble lord on being its leader. If it were not for the Labour

members--a most useful body--I should say that the old Fourth Party

lived again." He paused. He sighed, "Ah me!" and then reclined again.

The House at once voted the Address. Members hurried to remove from the

notice paper futile resolutions and blocking motions. A score of bills,

prudently progressive, were at once formally introduced. Parties vied

with each other in making constructive suggestions. Parliament was full

of the spirit which made the Psalmist's mountains skip like rams. It

went to work with a will.

In the midst of this whirl of fine happenings the fairies departed.

They flew to the top of the Victoria Tower, and revelled; while Bim,

unblessed with powers of flight, went peacefully to sleep in Geoffrey's

breast-pocket.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*OBERON AT LAST*

So far as the conquest of London was concerned, all was over except the

shouting. June was triumphant. There was no question about that.

Victory clung to her as a golden shadow. More and more elves came from

Fairyland, each one increasing the area for good, and becoming a present

testimony to the truth of June's victory.

Oberon was silent; as yet he made no sign--he remained far away, hunting

in the valleys of obstinacy; but no other in the shadow-lands of Faerie

hesitated to acknowledge the glorious truth. June's madness--as they

called it--was justified.

Spring came creeping up. Nature awoke; shook off her lethargy, and

cried welcome to the future. The trees were cautiously putting on

raiment. Birds found their forgotten voices, and began practising

anthems, preparing for the nesting season. June, touched by the hope in

the air, and strengthened with the satisfaction of seeing a recovered or

recovering London, was modestly confident.

A human person, with such progress behind him, would have been cocksure;

but the fairies know better!

She showed her strength and content by an act of courage. She sent the

crown back to Fairyland; Bim, as a special mark of honour, was

privileged to take it.

The gnome, through this great trust--so responsible, so ennobling--was

rapt up to the seventeenth realm of happiness. The privilege filled him

with a fine humility. He did not presume to wear the crown; he held it

with reverence in his hands, and when riding his pelican homewards--June

procured one for that mission from St. James's Park--carried it

carefully under his arm.

He reached the Violet Valley, delivered the crown to its mystical

guardians, and then, eager to give expression to his wonderful

adventures, told to excited groups of immortals tales of the doings of

June. His words came forth in torrents. He had so much to say. He

developed unexpected powers of expression. He found himself, while

detailing his epic, shining with the graces of minor poetry. Nymphs,

gathering about him as he spoke, sweetened his narrative with chords

struck on harps of gold and starshine. His tales were repeated by

tellers a hundredfold. A fairy "Iliad" was in the making. Not a flower

or frog in Elfland failed to receive a full, true, and particular

account of what the fairy and gnome had experienced, and of their

ultimate triumph.

The result was better than glorious. Bim was acting as a first-rate

recruiting officer. In consequence of his eloquence, the flow of

fairies townwards grew rapidly in volume. The more he talked, the

faster they flew. His ardour and loquacity were stimulated still

further by this increasing--and vanishing--evidence of his success.

Encouraged, he went on talking--explaining, appealing. He stood on a

stump, an orator. His persuasiveness and powers of speech were

depopulating Fairyland. They harkened, ruminated, and fled.

Oberon, made aware of this, was roused at last to the seriousness of

things, and came back to Elfland in a panic.

"I told you so!" said Titania, with that inconsequence and gentle

insistency her lord so loved.

The king airily murmured a royal "Pooh!" and hid his thoughts in a mist.

Never before had the real Fairyland been so silent. Many of the glades

were empty. The flowers drooped. Noxious insects took courage and

prowled. The murmurs of chained dragons, subterraneously entombed, were

heard in the stillness for the first time for centuries; but they were

securely prisoned.

The fairy knights, their warders, strong in their high chivalry and

duteous devotion, resisted all inclination to follow the wings of their

fellows. They remained, abiding and true, at their arduous, difficult

posts, guarding the fiery caverns. Mankind has no idea of the dangers

that threatened them. If those living, prehistoric creatures had

escaped--but, no!--no!--no more of that! Let the horrors remain in the

ghastly depths, to be remembered only on those rare occasions when, with

their mighty convolutions, they cause earthquake.

The fairies flew crowding into London and the other cities which they

had forsaken; and did not come alone. Gnomes, thousandfold, also came

riding in, mounted on all manner of birds--goldfinches and tits, robins

and wrens, and others of the fine companionage of the feathered kingdom.

The monopoly of King Sparrow was over. He was kept in his proper place,

and became a decent and tolerant Bohemian.

Later in the summer season--when soft is the sun--bright-coloured

butterflies fluttered carelessly out of the country into the radiant

streets. Several birds went open-mouthed to greet them; but the fairy

power was so potent that the lingering things of beauty--the living

smiles of Psyche--were not touched.

Fire-flies were seen darting about the Royal Exchange. Swallows played

over the waters of the Thames.

London became worthier still of its various newcomers. It cleaned and

decked itself so rapidly that far-travelled sailormen, returning to the

Pool after merely a month of absence, saw the great difference, and,

knowing themselves deficient, earnestly signed the pledge.

Every pillar-box within an area of fifty square miles now had its fairy.

Gnomes, overcrowding, had to get lodgment where they could. The

favourite habitation of these democratic gentry was a discarded silk

hat, of which there were many--for men had come to realize the ugliness

and discomfort of the chimney monster, and had flung it out of fashion.

Better ventilated, and with the nap rubbed the wrong way, they had

become agreeable gnome-dwellings. There were long rows of them in

Victoria Park, and they were generously dotted about Lincoln's Inn

Fields and the Embankment Gardens.

The happiest chapter in the progress of June now began. It was nothing

other than the open faith of man in the reality and truth of the

fairies. Some of them, old people first, the youthful later, the

children last, saw them; saw fairies flying along happy streets or

proudly enthroned on the pillar-boxes, ruling with beneficence; saw

gnomes dangling and balancing on the iron arms of lamp-posts, seated in

rows on walls, sprawling among flower-pots on window-sills.

The discovery of this new vision had colossal results. It set the whole

world writing paragraphs. The newspapers, avid for facts, boomed the

revelation for all it was worth. German metaphysicians put on

gold-rimmed spectacles and laboriously laid the foundations of

voluminous tomes dedicated to the scientific analysis and philosophy of

the new great influence which had come to advance mankind. It was the X

rays and radium--advanced a long stage further.

Humanity generally woke up with a start to the better condition of

things, and set itself even more vigorously than before to the remedying

of wrongs and the removal of whatever rottenness had managed to survive.

Life became as an anthem with a jolly chorus. Croakers, and the

pessimists whose idea of duty is to hinder and delay, were pleasantly

pushed out of place, so that optimists, with vision and the will to do,

might get to work.

Those months of spring--until the almond was in blossom, and the daisies

began to bud--knew more eager preparation and the devising of true

artistic plans for the betterment and adornment of London, its suburbs,

and the other like places of England, than ever before.

What of poet and artist, lives somehow and somewhere, in every

individual, became, in the sunshine of ideas then warm in the world,

strong enough to emerge from its chrysalis state? Facts were examined

in the light of informed ideas. Men went about with dreams in their

eyes, and worked with practical hands.

The smoke fiend was promptly abolished--the means for doing this had

long been waiting to be used; and at once London became brighter. A

bottle of November fog was treasured in the British Museum. The blue

skies, no longer veiled through the incense of black King Coal, shone so

brightly on streets and buildings, lighting them up, that the lurking

filth and dinginess despoiling worthy edifices became more than ever

eyesores and an annoyance.

St. Paul's Cathedral was attacked with an army of brushes. Before

Midsummer-day came, the great architectural crown of London emerged in

white glory from its setting of roofs--they were flower-filled now--and

soon would be pointing to the heavens, a burnished dome of bronze.

Trees were planted along the sides of every main thoroughfare. Silent

motor-buses glided through green avenues. Statues not doomed by the

order of ugliness were cleansed; and, where their subject allowed it,

were adorned with flowers festooned about their pedestals.

Trafalgar Square was, at last, in process of becoming worthy of its

position and opportunity. A new story, architecturally handsome, was

superimposed on the National Gallery, removing the past insignificance.

The Square itself became a joy in marble and roses. Whitehall sparkled

with fountains. The rails of the Parks were removed.

The Thames grew silvern again. Men fished from boats alongside the

Embankment, and listened to the choruses of concerts in the gardens

which graced the fine thoroughfare. It was a favourite sight in future

years to watch the salmon running down to sea, and, later, making their

willing return to the upper reaches beyond Teddington.

Members of Parliament--there were petticoats amongst them--in the

intervals of beneficent debate--threw food from the Terrace to fishes

and seagulls.

Cockneys hoped for a hay-harvest on Clerkenwell Green.

And that is all we need say to show how splendidly the fairies were

causing men to modify London.

Beauty was living; vulgarity was dying. Hopefulness, happiness, kindness

reigned.

We must go back to an earlier stage of the triumph of June, when the

happy developments, aforesaid, were generally but generating in men's

minds, and had not come to actual processes of materialization.

It was April--the beginning of the last week of the joyous month; and

though on all sides of her there was bustling evidence of her absolute

victory, June felt sad, for Oberon had given no sign of his forgiveness.

He and Titania were the only fairies who had not come to justify her

happiness. Realizing this, she had almost enough sorrow for tears. Why

did not the king come? Could his displeasure still be active?

As she flew here, there, and all about the radiant Metropolis--from over

which the pall of evil had been finally removed--she sighed and sighed

again. Her comrades, seeing the sadness, her burden, were grieved. It

was the only dark speck on a condition of absolute joy.

June visited her human friends--Sally Wilkins, the Oldsteins, Archdeacon

Pryde, the Mosses, the Duke and Duchess of Armingham, Lord Geoffrey

Season, Sir Titus Dods--and rejoiced to find them still at work on the

right lines, marching the way of fairy progress, but her yellow

depression clung to her and would not be shaken off.

Strange that even in the hour of fulfilled joy she should be haunted by

the spectre of disappointment; but so it was.

The last days of April drifted by. It was the evening of its thirtieth

day. Soon after midnight, in the first of the morning darkness, the

fairy of the year was to be crowned.

June hid herself in loneliness on her roof over Paradise Court, drooped

her wings, and was, in every respect, weary. The hour of reaction, so

long resisted, at last had come. She felt then that the successful

fulfilment of her quest, while lifting a weight from her, had also taken

away something that sustained and inspired her. With Bim far away--she

knew not where--and her multitude of comrades dispersed in all parts of

the Metropolis, or, she supposed, travelling to the new crowning, her

burden of weakness and weariness was heavy indeed.

She looked up to the sky, and remembered the evening of a year ago. The

stars were shining now as they shone then. The crescent moon looked

down. Curious as ever, Diana, that prudish old maid, the Hellenic Mrs.

Grundy, peeped through the silver cranny, and watched the world, waiting

the crowning.

Memories of the last May-day came forcefully to June. She recollected

Oberon's appeal to her; Titania's brief kindness of championship; her

own defiance and flight. How changed things were since then! She

longed to be back in the Land of Wild Roses, now that her task was

fulfilled.

Though the stars were shining brightly, life and the sky seemed to her

grey, and grey remained till the clocks struck eleven. Roused by their

chorus from her depressing reverie, she flew to the highest chimney on

her roof, to contemplate in farewell the wonders surrounding her.

Bim's garden was still flourishing. Its flowers shone proudly with

fairy-light. They--aha!--were not faint-hearted. On many roofs

spring-time petals were looking upward, an elf-flame breaking from every

opening bud. Fairyland was effectually translated; London transformed.

Good-bye for a time! To-morrow she would leave all this--her particular

task was done. She would, in the minutes before midnight, hasten to the

new crowning, wherever it might be, to congratulate the happiest fairy,

whoever that should be, and then, free, she would fly to the dear home

ways, to rest, refresh, rejoice.

But would the gentle King forgive her? She remembered his command of a

year ago, and felt sorrow, which the record of a completed purpose and

victory won could not banish or diminish.

The question troubled her, till Oberon brought the answer.

She was seated brooding on the rim of the chimney, her deportment and

limp wings signs of extreme dejection, when she was aware of brightness

and happiness approaching. She looked hastily about her.

Sorrow went.

Myriads of fairies were on the wing, coming fleetly towards her, singing

the songs that gladden the night of the crowning. Their brightness was

such that for a time it paled the stars. Then slowly, still chanting,

they ranged on the houses about her, or fluttered in laughing lines

under the sky.

Gnomes, eager to join in what was happening, came up, climbing

rain-pipes, and using other means of reaching the roof-country.

They reminded June of Bim. She wished he, too, was there. Why had not

he returned? This procession and display meant honour and happiness

which he deserved to share. But wherever he was, it was well with him;

that she knew.

She gave the whole of her attention to the wonders approaching.

On all sides about her fairies were ranged; the houses were outlined

with their radiance; every flower on window-sills and roof-gardens was

awake and shining.

Slowly now, gladly, majestically, the high aristocracy of Elfdom came.

They greeted June with the waving of wands, and then took places near

where she was sitting.

There was a burst of applause in melody. Oberon and Titania were

approaching. June's being trembled with rapture. They had come! They

had come! She rose to greet them; a great glad cry of welcome--welcome

from multitudinous elves rang up to the sky.

Their majesties of Fairyland came to Bim's garden, and there were

enthroned, a brilliant escort of knights grouped behind them.

"June," said the King, so clearly that every elf could hear him, "a year

has passed since your act of disobedience. Against our wishes, and

despite our will, you went to fulfil the impossible. You came to where

the cloud of evil--that ominous pall--hung over London, and proclaimed

the weakness of Fairyland!"

These words sounded so like a rebuke that June was fearful. She bowed

her head, opened wings, and knelt mutely before her monarch. Oberon

smiled.

"You have done well, June! You have accomplished the impossible. You

have taught us never to despair. For the first time in history a fairy

has disobeyed a King's command and done right. Elves!" he cried to the

company, "the hour of the crowning has nearly come. Who shall the

honoured fairy be?"

There was a moment's silence. Then, as a chord of music, far-flung,

unanimous, the answer came:

"June!"

Magnificent silence again.

The fortunate fairy, chosen, was still kneeling. Her great happiness

humbled her. Her wings quivered. She was enduring an ordeal. Titania

raised her, kissed her, brought to her confidence. Then, hand in hand,

June linking the King and Queen, they flew westward. The host of

fairies followed in a long line of golden light, cheerily singing. A

comet would be a mere firework in comparison with their splendour.

As they made progress over the town, Oberon and Titania saw the fruits

of June's efforts. The great Metropolis shone beautiful beneath them.

There was no ugliness, want, or unkindness in London that night.

Streets and houses were full of inspiring brightness and noble delight.

As they passed, half circling, St. Paul's Churchyard, a nightingale was

singing.

A great army of gnomes hurried along the roads, following the way of the

procession. They were not going to miss the crowning--no, not they!

Policemen on duty were only half aware of the bustlement proceeding.

The crowning was to be celebrated in St. James's Park. A choir of birds

were already singing the opening anthem as Oberon and Titania, still

hand in hand with June, descended to thrones in the greenness.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*CROWNED*

Fairyland! Fairyland!

Again there was high revel in Fairyland--revel heartier, happier than

ever before. No wilderness was now left unlighted by elf-kindness.

Every brick and fragment of London town, as every grass-blade and flower

in the green country, was under the acknowledged dominion of the fairy

King. The elves had come to their own again.

Oberon and Titania, with June seated between them, watched the

procession of infinite fairies arriving; saw the glorious presences

range themselves round the place of the coronation, while the

preparation of the Park's smooth sward for feasting and dancing went

rapidly on. Gnomes bustled about pell-mell, as they had done that night

of the year before, and soon made the wide, smooth lawn ready for

melodies of motion and song.

The heroes of old time came marching amid cheering to their places of

honour near the throne. They were shining with the pride wrought by

arduous duties done.

The cousins of Rumpelstiltzkin, belonging to the brotherhood which in

the far-away mountains of Knickerbocker had kidnapped happy-go-lucky

Rip, came up from their deep-down workshops--hammers in their hands--to

greet the fairy of the year. They stood or sat in groups, wagging their

beards with crony's talk, while gravely nodding in time with the music.

The hoarded gossip of months was then in circulation.

June was entranced by the wonders presented to her. It was all so

happily old, and yet in every item and particle so freshly, entrancingly

new.

Nymphs came from the dim Down-There--an underground Kingdom with roads,

rivers and mountains, nearly as vast and wonderful as this over-world,

is hidden in Fairyland (its stories may be told some day)--to flit on

gossamer wings and feet of light over the grass. Their motion touched

the winds with rapture, and gave to the night radiance and fragrance.

The daintiest and proudest of the immortals joined in the delight of the

dancing. No happier evening in the long, long annals of Elfland has

been or can be recorded. It was pre-eminently a brief series of hours

of triumph, without a single regret or fear to spoil or mar the

brightness and harmony.

Stars sent down their dearest beams laden with blessings for elfkind and

humanity. A great planet crossed the sky, a dazzling miniature of the

moon at its full.

June's only wonder during that period was--Bim! He could not be far

away. Where was he? It was strange he should not be there.

Meanwhile the revel went on, with its laughter, songs and feasting.

The time for the crowning came. Oberon rose and raised his sceptre in

command. A glad unanimous cry rang out. Birds atune to the rapture

sang. A chosen choir of a thousand nightingales expressed delight.

The time of the fairy year! The crown, guarded by a score of sentinels,

was reverently borne towards the King and Titania by a gnome--by Bim.

He was by royal proclamation appointed, henceforth and for ever, to be

its especial keeper; and so reaped the reward of his year of devotion

and prowess. June rose with delight to greet him. She forgot all else

of that festival then, in gladness at seeing him. For his part, in

return he smiled a smile broad enough to be a generous grin--no mere

plain prose words can express the fulness of his happiness.

June realized at once that he was changed, improved. He was less gnome

now than fairy knight. The nymph of the pool in the Violet Valley had

remembered the promise made on the early morning of his departure in the

wake of June. Bim had received the reward she had predicted. He was,

in that proud hour and for a while thereafter, unique in Fairyland;

having the distinction of being raised to a class by himself: less gnome

than knight: the rewarded hero; and no one was envious because of his

good fortune.

The gnomes, especially, were proud of their fellow, who by earning

honour for himself had thrown honour, reflected, on them.

The king took the crown from Bim, and held it above the happy fairy.

"June, June, June!" again and again that favourite name was raised.

The nightingales, unanimous, gave the guiding note, and the triumph

song--the anthem of that supreme hour--rang once again up to the stars.

London in sleep heard the song and dreamed of the fairies.

Oberon placed the crown on June's head. Hand in hand with Bim, she and

the comrade who had done so duteously walked slowly round the inside of

the great circle of elves.

It was the hour of triumph. Victory, absolute and supreme, was

expressed in the music of that night. Oberon ruled everywhere!

Fairyland! Fairyland!