in the time you may take to say "Oh dear!" An awful sense of her
peril came upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost
child in a place where no human must be between the locking and the
opening of the gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she
saw a thousand swords flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of
terror and fled.

How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head.
Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again.
Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew
she was in the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she
must never cease to run, and she thought she was still running long
after she had dropped in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the
snowflakes falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night.
She thought her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull
it over her head. And when she heard talking through her dreams she
thought it was mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at
her as she slept. But it was the fairies.

I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to
mischief her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such
cries as "Slay her!" "Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!"
and so on, but the pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should
march in front, and this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself
before the Queen and demand a boon.

Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie's
life. "Anything except that," replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
fairies chanted "Anything except that." But when they learned how
Maimie had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to