overhead, and the fairy took from her pocket a piece of bread and
cheese; she broke it in half and one part she gave to Teddy. It seemed
to him that he had never tasted anything so good, for, as the fairy
remarked, they were both of them hungry.

After they had finished it all to the very last bit, the fairy brushed
the crumbs from her lap, and, sitting there with the soft wind blowing
about them and the black roofs of the city in the distance, the
Counterpane Fairy told him the story of the King of the Black-Country
and the Princess Aureline.

"Far off yonder toward the east, where the sky looks so pale and
bright," began the fairy, "there lives a king, who is called King
Whitebeard, because his beard is as white as snow. He had only one
child, a daughter named the Princess Aureline, and she was as beautiful
as the day and as good as she was beautiful.

"Because she was so good and beautiful princes used to come from all
over the world seeking her hand in marriage, and among them came the
King of the Black-Country, the richest and most powerful of them all.

"The Princess Aureline would have nothing to say to him, however,
because he was wicked as well as rich, so at last the King of the
Black-Country gathered his army together and marching against King
Whitebeard he conquered him and carried off the Princess Aureline
captive.

"Now there are great rejoicings in the Black King's country, but the
Princess Aureline sits and grieves all the time, and nothing the King
can do can make her smile. The more the Black King does, the more she