“Pooh, surely even you must be tired with such levities: the spirit of the age is no longer frivolous; and I dare say as the march of gravity proceeds, we shall get rid of galas altogether.” The queen said this with an air of inconceivable wisdom, for the “Society for the Diffusion of General Stupefaction” had been recently established among the fairies, and its tracts had driven all the light reading out of the market. “The Penny Proser” had contributed greatly to the increase of knowledge and yawning, so visibly progressive among the courtiers. “No,” continued Nymphalin; “I have thought of something better than galas. Let us travel!” Pipalee clasped her hands in ecstasy. “Where shall we travel?” “Let us go up the Rhine,” said the queen, turning away her head. “We shall be amazingly welcomed; there are fairies without number all the way by its banks, and various distant connections of ours whose nature and properties will afford interest and instruction to a philosophical mind.” “Number Nip, for instance,” cried the gay Pipalee. “The Red Man!” said the graver Nymphalin. “Oh, my queen, what an excellent scheme!” and Pipalee was so lively during the rest of the night that the old fairies in the honeysuckle insinuated that the lady of honour had drunk a buttercup too much of the Maydew. CHAPTER II. THE LOVERS. I WISH only for such readers as give themselves heart and soul up to me,--if they begin to cavil I have done with them; their fancy should put itself entirely under my management; and, after all, ought they not to be too glad to get out of this hackneyed and melancholy world, to be run away with by an author who promises them something new?