Of this chain of Being, then, of which our order is a member, the fairy world is another and more subtle member, subtler in the right sense of the word because it is not burdened with a material envelope. Like man, like the wind, like the rose, it has spirit; but unlike any of the lower orders, of which man is one, it has no sensible wrapping unless deliberately it consents to inhabit one. This, as we know, it frequently does. I have mentioned several cases of the kind; Mrs. Ventris was one, Mabilla By-the-Wood was another. I have not personally come across any other cases where a male fairy took upon him the burden of a man than that of Quidnunc. Even there I have never been satisfied that Quidnunc became man to the extent that Mrs. Ventris did. Quidnunc, no doubt, was the father of Lady Emily's children; but were those children human? There are some grounds for thinking so, and in that case, if "the nature follows the male," Quidnunc must have doffed his immateriality and suffered real incarnation. If they were fairy children the case is altered. Quidnunc need not have had a body at all. Now since it is clear that the fairy world is a real order of creation, with laws of its own every whit as fixed and immutable as those of any other order known to naturalists, it is very reasonable to inquire into the nature and scope of those laws. I am not at all prepared at present to attempt anything like a digest of them. That would require a lifetime; and no small part of the task, after marshalling the evidence, would be to agree upon terms which would be intelligible to ourselves and yet not misleading. To take polity alone, are we to understand that any kind of Government resembling that of human societies obtains among them? When we talk of Queens or Kings of the Fairies, of Oberon and Titania, for example, are we using a rough translation of a real something, or are we telling the mere truth? Is there a fairy king? The King of the Wood, for instance, who was he? Is there a fairy queen? Who is Queen Mab? Who is Despoina? Who is the Lady of the Lake? Who is the "_Βασίλισσα τὣν βουνὣν_," or "_Μεγάλη Κυρά_" of whom Mr. Lawson tells us such suggestive things in his _Modern Greek Folk-lore?_ Who is Despoina, with whom I myself have conversed, "a dread goddess, not of human speech?" The truth, I suspect, is this. There are, as we know, countless tribes, clans, or orders of fairies, just as there are nations of men. They confess the power of some greater Spirit among themselves, bow to it instantly and submit to its decrees; but they do not, so far as I can understand, acknowledge a monarchy in any sense of ours. If there is a Supreme Power over the fairy creation it is Proserpine; but hers is too remote an empire to be comparable to any of ours. Not even Cæsar, not even the Great King, could hope to rule such myriads as she. She may stand for the invisible creation no doubt, but she would never have commerce with it. No fairy hath seen