“You have your pink silk dress with you,” said the Lady of Dreams-Come-True, laughing. Meg looked down in surprise. Over her left arm hung her once-treasured pink gown! Somehow, among these wonderful flowers and beside this beautiful lady, it did not look nearly so pretty as it once had. She let it slip to the ground. “I must have been very silly,” she said half to herself, “to want to bring _that_ to Make Believe Land!” [Illustration: BAB AND THE SAND MAN] The lady laughed again, in a pleased way. “Then you must go to Court as you are,” she said; “but _I_ think that you look very nice!” Meg looked down again, and saw that her white dress was now as fresh and clean as though it had just been washed. “Why—why—” she stammered, “how wonderful! It might almost be Fairyland already!” “It _is_ Fairyland already,” said her new friend. “Look!” Over the flowers Meg could see a thousand faint and shining wings. The air shimmered and glinted with them; the flowers swayed softly beneath their fanning. The daintiest, loveliest faces and forms showed dimly between every glistening, misty pair of these wonderful wings. Meg gazed, bewildered. “Oh, how beautiful!” she cried softly. “Good-bye, Meg,” was all the lady would say. She seemed to be growing transparent and misty herself. “Good-bye!” cried Meg. “Oh! shall I see you again?” “Oh, yes! yes!” she answered, smiling, and seemed to become a little less distinct. “Some day—some day—” murmured Dreams-Come-True; and straightway vanished into the soft rainbow-tinted air. As Meg walked on through the Flower Meadow, the delicate wings and faces grew more and more distinct, and seemed to crowd ever closer and closer about her. Everywhere they floated, like faintly coloured mist-wreaths, like the ghosts of big, beautiful butterflies, like flowers made alive. Everywhere the light glowed, brilliant and yet soft, like a huge, liquid opal. Sometimes it seemed to Meg to be shot with the palest pink, sometimes the purest blue, sometimes the most exquisite green, the clearest yellow, the faintest lavender. And what with the flowers, and the wings, and the magical colours in the air, Meg felt as though she were moving through the heart of a great rainbow. About her feet and against her dress swayed and bumped the big bright flowers. Some of them were so tall that they touched her shoulders with their sweet, nodding heads; sometimes they were so tiny that she almost stepped on them, though, of course, she tried not to. The sky was filled with rainbow-coloured clouds; a delicious perfume hung everywhere. In the distance rose slender turrets—gold and rose-coloured and snow-white—from the mist of flowers and wings. And as Meg listened, she could hear any number of voices singing, in the sweetest chorus imaginable, a little, soft song about roses and clouds and dew and star-beams.