"Sisters and knights from the delightful countries," June answered. "To hear your voices is music to a heart which has hungered for melody. To be with you again and for ever is the dream of these days and nights. O Fairyland, Fairyland! But for me that cannot be, until this world-town of vanity and darkness is a part of Fairyland too. Help us, and work with us. Already Hope shines through the misery. Already we have been rewarded--Bim and I. We have begun well. Laughter and flowers bloom where a few weeks ago they could not. We are going to win. Men have listened to our bidding. Elf-rule is leading them. Their puppet limbs are bending to the light. They are beginning again in the darkest parts to live with beauty and love the fairies. Bear with us: and help them. Before next Mayday comes, I must deliver up this crown. Sweet knights and sister elves, so work with us that Oberon may be ruling over London again." In answer a fairy song went rolling from the assembly, up and up, piercing the cloud overhead, discovering the stars. June rejoiced at the hearing, though still it was an appeal to her--a yearning appeal to her--to be done with her madness, to submit to Oberon, to return. June felt alone. The new song wakened Bim. He sat up suddenly, ears pricked sharply with eager attention. Fairies in London! He clambered amazedly up the slanting roof and knelt by the side of June. She laid hands on his shoulders. The two waited and watched. In twos and threes, reluctantly, the fairies opened wings, and went away. Over the houses they journeyed, a glittering, saddened procession. Higher and higher, and farther and farther they flew. The sound of their chorus gradually diminished till there was silence--the silence of sleep-bound London--again. Gone! June gazed on her garden of flowers. The gnome crawled away sadly, and squatted by the chimney-pot, dangling his feet. He felt a solid piece of melancholy. "That was a very nice dream," he said for comfort’s sake; and found the words not comforting. "Let us be doing things," June counselled. *CHAPTER XI* *A PROSE INTERLUDE* Oldstein came at last to Paradise Court, and two good things resulted--Sally was taken out of her slave-life and sent to a boarding-school at the expense of her former task-master, and June went to tea with the Archdeacon. Emmanuel had been for six weeks living up to his ideals. It was the hardest of tasks to him, but obstinate doggedness pulled him through. He had come actually to like doing good, and realized the subtle joys which live in generosity. He developed a habit--learned indirectly from the goodly practices of Dr. Johnson--of keeping chocolates and pennies in his pocket, and dropping one or other of them surreptitiously into the laps, pockets, or hands of children. June was proud to smiling-point of this, her least-likely pupil. He was doing the fairies’ work so pleasantly.