CHAPTER I
.
A PARTY of little boys and girls sat in a box watching the wonderful fairy play.
It spread before them a blaze of light, and colour, and movement. It was fairyland come true. Diamonds and rubies and emeralds of supernatural size shone on the trees; fairies and elves tripped in and out. They all came out of one enormous blossom, that opened wide its petals, at the back of the stage.
The children laughed till their sides shook; they leant so far out of the box that it was a wonder they did not topple down on the heads of the people in the stalls below.
After a while, one of the boys grew serious. He let the others laugh, but he remained grave. He was absorbed in watching one of the fairies. She was so exquisitely beautiful, this tiny creature, with golden hair all standing out, and a star shining on her forehead; a dress like a great blue-bell, and wings on her shoulders, that he could not speak or laugh for wonder at her loveliness.
He watched her dancing down the middle of the stage on tip-toe. She waved her silver wand above her head; her dress shone as if frosted with moonbeams.
How sweet and fragile she looked! From whence did she come? Her home must be some place beautiful beyond all telling. She was called "Pea Blossom" on the play bill, and she was one of the attendant fairies of Titania. The King of the fairies, Oberon, was evidently very angry with the Queen. He was a sturdy fairy, all dressed in gold, with a gold crown on his head. The other children laughed as he danced up and down in a rage, but Willy (this was the little boy's name) grew graver and graver. He did not laugh when Puck appeared with pointed ears and a grinning muzzle.
He lost all interest in the play when Pea Blossom was not there; but he remained rapt when again he saw her once more near Titania, lying on a green bank in the moonlight. Willy thought it was impossible for any mortal being to be so lovely as Pea Blossom.
He grew graver when there appeared a queer creature with the head of an ass, and the legs of a man, and Titania, waking from sleep, began to stroke him, and to say all sorts of pretty things to him in her coaxing voice.
She caressed his long ears, and vowed they were so pretty. She ordered Pea Blossom to scratch his head! The little fairy fed him with thistles. Willy grew angry. How could this delicate fairy fondle this monster? The ass looked melancholy and sentimental; his ears drooped, and he said, "Hee—haw!"
The other children roared with laughter when Titania enjoyed the sweetness of that note, "Hee—haw," and asked for it again!
Then the beautiful dream, which was the play, grew brighter and brighter as Oberon and Titania made it up. The moon rose in the sky, and the little Queen held out her two hands to Oberon, and he took them; and the fairies in the King's suite held out theirs to the Queen's fairies, and together they all danced in couples up and down and round and round the greenwood. Among the wild roses, and the tall moon daisies, the king-cups and the bluebells, they danced to a swift, sweet melody. The King, with the tunic of gold, the Queen, with the star on her forehead; Pea Blossom, with her dress like a blue-bell, and an elf in yellow. On and on, in the moonlight, down the glen, until they vanished in the mist beyond, and the great curtain dropped, and all was over.
Then Willy started up. "Oh dear! had it all been a dream?"
In the carriage, as they drove home through the dark streets, the children discussed the play.
"And what did you care for most, my boy?" said Willy's father. It was Willy's father who had taken him and his little cousins to the theatre.
"The little fairy called Pea Blossom," answered Willy, softly.
"She is a pretty little thing," said his father.
"And what a lovely dress—all blue and silver—and such sweet wings. Did you see the peacock's eyes on them?" said Mabel, who was proud of her keen sight.
"She was more beautiful than anything I ever saw," said Willy with a sigh of delighted remembrance.
"I liked Bully Bottom best," said George, swinging his legs about in his excitement, "he looked so awfully ridiculous. It was so jolly when he said, 'Hee—haw!'"
Then there was a chorus of "Hee—haw! hee—haw!" in which all the children except Willy joined.
"I liked it all, every bit," began Mabel again. "I should like to go and see it every night; but the jolliest of all was to see Oberon dancing in a rage, and ordering Puck about."
"Willy cares for Pea Blossom only," said his father.
"I did not care for anything but Pea Blossom," agreed Willy. "I wonder where she is gone to now?"
"Oh! ha! ha!" said his father, "perhaps she is flying among beautiful apple trees all in blossom; or perhaps she has crept under a toad-stool, and is lying fast asleep there now."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
##