“No,” said the fairy, “it’s not a parade, but it is a grand merrymaking, and it’s because of it that I’ve brought you here. But I’m tired and hungry, for we’ve come a long way, so let us sit down by the roadside a bit, and while we rest I’ll tell you all about the goings on and what we have to do with them.” Teddy was quite willing, so he and the Counterpane Fairy sat down together on the soft grass beside the road, with the mild and misty sky overhead, and the fairy took from her pocket a piece of bread and cheese; she broke it in half and one part she gave to Teddy. It seemed to him that he had never tasted anything so good, for, as the fairy remarked, they were both of them hungry. After they had finished it all to the very last bit, the fairy brushed the crumbs from her lap, and, sitting there with the soft wind blowing about them and the black roofs of the city in the distance, the Counterpane Fairy told him the story of the King of the Black-Country and the Princess Aureline. “Far off yonder toward the east, where the sky looks so pale and bright,” began the fairy, “there lives a king, who is called King Whitebeard, because his beard is as white as snow. He had only one child, a daughter named the Princess Aureline, and she was as beautiful as the day and as good as she was beautiful. “Because she was so good and beautiful princes used to come from all over the world seeking her hand in marriage, and among them came the King of the Black-Country, the richest and most powerful of them all. “The Princess Aureline would have nothing to say to him, however, because he was wicked as well as rich, so at last the King of the Black-Country gathered his army together and marching against King Whitebeard he conquered him and carried off the Princess Aureline captive. “Now there are great rejoicings in the Black King’s country, but the Princess Aureline sits and grieves all the time, and nothing the King can do can make her smile. The more the Black King does, the more she grieves, but she is so very beautiful that the King would deny her nothing except to let her go home to her father.” “I should like to see a princess,” said Teddy. “So you shall,” said the fairy, “for you are a great magician now, and you have come here to do what no other hero in the world dares to do; you have come to rescue the Princess Aureline and carry her back to her own country.” “Do you mean I am a real magician?” asked Teddy. “Why, yes,” said the fairy. “Don’t you see you are dressed in a magician’s robe? And there is your magic-chest on the grass beside you. Look!” So saying the fairy drew a mirror of polished steel from under her cloak and held it up before Teddy, and as he looked into it he hardly knew himself; he was dressed in a black hood, and a long black robe strangely woven about the hem with characters in white, and he held a white staff in his hand. Beside him on the grass was a box bound round with iron, and that was his magic-box.