At an early hour the next morning, after carefully ascertaining that the Baron had not yet risen, he waited on the Fairy, who heard what he had to tell with high good-humour and complacency. "Most satisfactory, my dear Mirliflor!" she said. "And everything has turned out exactly as I always told you it would. I shall visit her this morning and prepare her for the future in store for her. As for you, you must get to your work as usual, and at noon you will find us at the end of the yew walk behind the Pavilion. I shall have to change you back to yourself again, and I'm thankful to say it will be the last time I shall ever be called upon to do anything of that sort. Then I shall take you both in the stork-car to Clairdelune, and we shall hear what your Royal father thinks of the bride you have chosen. He _may_ consider that an ex-lady-in-waiting is not----" "He has only to see her," declared Mirliflor. "But object as he may, no thing and no one shall separate us now." "Well, well, if it comes to that, I dare say I shall manage to overcome his objections," she said. She might have been more explicit if she had not decided to reserve the surprise of Daphne's royal descent until the final scene at Clairdelune--which would be far more effective, as well as safer. "And don't worry yourself about that foolish old Baron," she concluded. "We shall be gone before _he_ can give any trouble. Now be off with you--I shan't want you till noon, and a few more hours' gardening won't hurt you!" There was no need to hurry, so she did not leave her tower till it was nearly half an hour to mid-day, when she went slowly and by unfrequented paths through the gardens and thence to the Pavilion. Daphne, who had been anxiously expecting her, saw her from the Pavilion and came to meet her, feeling and looking rather guilty. "Have you heard?" she asked. "But I can see you have.... _Well_, Court Godmother?" "Well," said the Fairy, bent on prolonging the test to the last moment, "this is a pretty thing you have done, upon my word! _You_ to fall in love with a penniless student! If you had only had the patience to wait," she continued, as she led her towards the yew walk, "I'd have found a handsome young Prince for you. It's not too late, even now." "I used to think I would only marry a Prince, I don't now," said Daphne. "I wouldn't change Girofle for any Prince in the world. And what am _I_, after all? Just a Governess!" "And when you have married your student, what do you suppose you are going to live on?" "Oh, we shall manage somehow," said Daphne tranquilly. "We shall be poor, of course, but what does that matter so long as we're together?" "Ah," said the Fairy, "but I can't understand what a beautiful girl like you can see in such an ugly young fellow!" "He _isn't_ ugly!" Daphne declared. "And I shouldn't mind a bit if he _was_! He'd still be Girofle!" "All the same," pursued the Fairy, "you wouldn't object to his being handsomer?"