the Cupids and decreed that they should wear fools' caps until they
thawed the Duke's frozen heart.

"How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools'
caps!" Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very
recklessly, for the Cupids hate to be laughed at.

It is always easy to discover where a fairies' ball is being held, as
ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty
on the snow.

Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just
time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms
and pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front
and six behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train
held up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch,
reclined a lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel
about. She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of
her was her neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture,
and of course showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could
have glorified it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect
by pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye
them, and you cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen
the ladies' busts in the jewellers' windows.

Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a