"They would never dare to do that!" said his Mother. "I expect they have missed their way in the dark. Very careless of them. I don't know what Lady Harriet and the Committee will think of me. They'll probably ask somebody else to take the part of Queen before we can get there--for I'm sure we must be a good hundred miles away from Gablehurst!" "The Baron said that he was taking us to Maerchenland, Mrs. Stimpson," said Daphne; "and I'm _almost_ sure that that is where we really are." "And where may Maerchenland be?" inquired Mrs. Stimpson sharply. "I never heard of it myself." "Well," said Daphne, "it's another name for--for Fairyland, you know." "Fairyland indeed!" replied Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson with some irritation. "You will find it difficult to persuade me to believe that I am in _Fairyland_, Miss Heritage! To begin with, there is no such place, and if there was, perhaps you will kindly tell me how we could possibly have got to it?" "Through the air," explained Daphne patiently. "That car was drawn by _storks_, you see--not ostriches." "When you have _quite_ woke up, Miss Heritage," said Mrs. Stimpson, "you will realise what nonsense you are talking." "Whatever this place is," said Clarence, "it don't look English, somehow, to _me_. I mean to say--that town over there--what?" He pointed across the wide plain to a cluster of towers, spires, gables, and pinnacles which glittered and gleamed faintly through the shimmering morning haze. "It certainly has rather a Continental appearance," observed his father. "If it has," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "it is only some buildings or scenery or something they have run up for the Pageant. So we haven't been taken in the wrong direction after all." "_I_ believe, Mummy," chirped Ruby, "Miss Heritage is right, and this _is_ Fairyland." "Don't be so ridiculous, child! You'll believe next that we came here in a car drawn by flying storks, I suppose!" "D'you know, Mater," said Clarence, "I'm not so sure we mayn't have. What I mean is--there's some sort of flying machine coming along now. I grant you it isn't drawn by storks, but they're _birds_ anyhow, and there seems to be some one in the car too." "Nothing of the kind!" declared Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson obstinately. "At least one may fancy one sees anything with the sun in our eyes as it is. Well, upon my word!" she added, still incredulously, as an iridescent shell-shaped chariot attached to a team of snow-white doves _volplaned_ down from a dizzy height to a spot only a few yards away, "I really could not have--who, and what can this old person be?"