Too late they come, too late for you, These old friends that are ever new, Enchanted in our volume blue. For you ere now have wandered o'er A world of tales untold of yore, And learned the later fairy lore! Nay, as within her briery brake, The Sleeping Beauty did awake, Old tales may rouse them for your sake. And you once more may voyage through The forests that of old we knew, The fairy forests deep in dew, Where you, resuming childish things, Shall listen when the Blue Bird sings, And sit at feasts with fairy kings, And taste their wine, ere all be done, And face more welcome shall be none Among the guests of Oberon. Ay, of that feast shall tales be told, The marvels of that world of gold To children young, when you are old. When you are old! Ah, dateless when, For youth shall perish among men, And Spring herself be ancient then. A. L. 1889. CONTENTS _Preface by Mrs. Andrew Lang_ _The Drowned Buccaneer_ _The Perplexity of Zadig_ _The Return of the Dead Wife_ _Young Amazon Snell_ _The Good Sir James_ _Rip van Winkle_ _The Wonderful Basket_ _The Escape of the Galley-slaves_ _The Beaver and the Porcupine_ _An Old-world Ghost_ _The Gentleman Highwayman_ _The Vision of the Pope_ _Growing-up-like-one-who-has-a-grandmother_ _The Handless Brigade_ _The Son of the Wolf Chief_ _Blind Jack of Knaresborough_ _Blind Jack Again_ _The Story of Djun_ _What Became of Owen Parfitt?_ _Blackskin_ _The Pets of Aurore Dupin_ _The Trials of M. Deschartres_ _Aurore at Play_ _How Aurore learned to Ride_ _Land-Otter the Indian_ _The Disinheriting of a Son_ _The Siege of Rhodes_ _The Princess of Babylon_ _The Adventures of Fire-Drill's Son_ _The Strange Story of Elizabeth Canning_ _Mrs. Veal's Ghost_ _The Chief's Daughter_ _The Boyhood of a Painter_ _The Adventures of a Spanish Nun_ _ILLUSTRATIONS_ ANDREW LANG, _Rembrandt-gravure from a Photograph_ _COLOURED PLATES_ _Father Redcap found in the Cellar_ _The King and Queen rejoice when their Pets return_ _How the Girls found Mountain Dweller_ _How the Boy shot the White Bear_ _Blind Jack plays his Fiddle at the Assembly Balls_ _Djun's Magic in the House of the Chief_ _Besides the White Rabbit Aurore greatly admired General Murat_ _Aurore sets free the Captive Birds at the Altar of Corambé_ _Discovering the Traitor_ _The Princess of Babylon and the Phoenix_ _The Girl Bathed him every Morning in the Pool_ _Leonardo frightens his Father with the Monster painted on the Shield_ _FULL-PAGE PLATES_