The boy-king did not make a direct answer; he only said, "I like you very much, though you don't like me." "Why do you like me?" asked Jack. So he opened his eyes wide with surprise: "Most boys say Sire to me," he observed; "at least they used to do when there were any boys here. However, that does not signify. Why, of course I like you, because I am so tired of being always a fawn, and you brought Mopsa to break the spell. You cannot think how disagreeable it is to have no hands, and to be all covered with hair. Now look at my hands; I can move them and turn them everywhere, even over my head if I like. Hoofs are good for nothing in comparison; and we could not talk." "Do tell me about it," said Jack. "How did you become fawns?" "I dare not tell you," said the boy; "and listen!--I hear Mopsa." Jack looked, and certainly Mopsa was coming, but very strangely, he thought. Mopsa, like all other fairies, was afraid to whisper a spell with her eyes open; so a handkerchief was tied across them, and as she came on she felt her way, holding by the banisters with one hand, and with the other, between her finger and thumb, holding out the silver wand. She felt with her foot for the edge of the first stair; and Jack heard her say, "I am much older,--ah! so much older, now I have got my wand. I can feel sorrow too, and _their_ sorrow weighs down my heart." Mopsa was dressed superbly in a white satin gown, with a long, long train of crimson velvet which was glittering with diamonds; it reached almost from one end of the great gallery to the other, and had hundreds of fairies to hold it and keep it in its place. But in her hair were no jewels, only a little crown made of daisies, and on her shoulders her robe was fastened with the little golden image of a boat. These things were to show the land she had come from and the vessel she had come in. So she came slowly, slowly down stairs blindfold, and muttering to her wand all the time: Though the sun shine brightly, Wand, wand, guide rightly. So she felt her way down to the great hall. There the wand turned half round in the hall toward the great door, and she and Jack and the other Jack came out into the lawn in front with all the followers and trainbearers; only the dame remained behind. Jack noticed now for the first time that, with the one exception of the boy-king, all these fairies were lady-fairies; he also observed that Mopsa, after the manner of fairy queens, though she moved slowly and blindfold, was beginning to tell a story. This time it did not make him feel sleepy. It did not begin at the beginning: their stories never do. These are the first words he heard, for she spoke softly and very low, while he walked at her right hand, and the other Jack on her left: