CHAPTER XI

DOWN THE WELL

'Blue-bells the news are spreading,
Ring-a-ting, ting, ting, ting!
All the flowers have voices,

Lovely the songs that they sing ;
How the blue-bell rejoices,

Ting-a-ring, ting, ting, ting!' .

RUBY shrank back a little.

'I don't want to see Winfried,' she said, 'after all And, oh Mavis, I must be in such a mess

we did.

my clothes were all soaked in the sea."

'No, they weren't,' said Mavis, laughing; 'at least if they were they've come right again. Stand up, Ruby, and shake yourself, and look at yourself. There now, did you ever look neater or nicer in your life?'

Ruby stood up and looked at herself as Mavis advised her.

'Is this my own frock?' she said. 'No, it can't be: See, Mavis, it's all beautifully embroidered with forget-me-nots! And what lovely blue ribbon my hair is tied with; and my hands are so white and clean- Mavis, did the princess dress me while

I was asleep?'

Mavis nodded her head sagely.

'Something like it,' she said.

'And oh,' continued Ruby, 'your frock is just the same, and your ribbons and all. How nice you look, Mavis! Is the princess here? I should so like her to see us.'

'She's not here to-day,' said Mavis. 'She's away somewhere I'm not sure,' she added in a lower voice, but that it's about Bertrand.'

Ruby gave a sort of shiver.

'Oh Mavis!' she said, 'he was so cruel and so heartless, and I was so miserable. I do hope the princess will make him go quite away.'

'Or if he was to be quite changed,' said Mavis.

'No, no. I don't want him. I only want you, my darling little Mavis, and we shall be so happymuch, much happier than we have ever been. Kiss me, Mavis, and tell me you quite forgive me, and if

ever I am naughty or horrid again, I hope the princess will punish me.'

'She won't let you forget her any way,' said Mavis. I think that is how she punishes.'

Ruby looked rather puzzled; but before she could ask more they heard Winfried's whistle, and in a moment he appeared. His face was all one smileall Ruby's fears and misgivings faded away before it.

,

Grandfather is waiting for you,' he said. 'There are some cakes, Miss Ruby, that you will find even better than those others. For everything is better here, you see.'

'How lovely it must all be,' said Ruby, with a little sigh. 'Aren't you sorry, Winfried, that you can't stay here altogether? Mavis says you have to go away to work.'

'Of course,' said Winfried cheerily. 'It would never do, young as I am, not to work. And we shouldn't enjoy this half as much if we had it always -it's the rest and refreshment after common life that makes half the happiness. It's different for gran-he's done his part, none better, and now his work should be light. I'm thankful to know he's safe here. Now we had better go-down that little hill is the way to his cottage.'

Children, you have perhaps never been in fairyland, nor, for that matter, have I been there either. But I have had glimpses of it a good many times in my life, and so I hope have you. And these glimpses, do you know, become more frequent and are less fleeting as one grows older. I, at least, find it so. Is not that something to look forward to? Though, after all, this sweet country to which our three little friends, thanks to the beautiful princess, had found their way, was scarcely the dream region which we think of as fairyland; it was better described by little Mavis's own name for the nameless garden-Forget-me-not Land'; for once having entered there, no one can lose the remembrance of it, any more than once having looked into her eyes one can forget Princess Forget-me-not herself.

But it would be difficult to describe this magic land; I must leave a good deal of it to that kind of fancy which comes nearer truth than clumsy words. Though, as it is nice to be told all that can be told of the sweetest and most beautiful things, I will try to tell you a little of what Ruby and Mavis saw.

It might not have seemed such a lovely place to everybody, perhaps. Time had been even when Ruby herself might not have thought it so; for this

garden-land was not a gorgeous place; it was just sweet and restful. As I told you, all the flowers were wild flowers; but that gives you no idea of what they looked like, for they were carefully tended and arranged, growing in great masses together in a way we never see, except sometimes in spring when the primroses almost hide the ground where they grow, or at mid-summer when a rich luxuriance of dog-roses and honeysuckle makes it seem as if they had been planted on purpose,' as children say. All along the grassy paths where Winfried led them, every step made the little girls exclaim in new admiration.

'Oh see, Ruby, there is a whole bank of "ragged Robin." I could not have believed it would look so beautiful; and there-look at those masses of "sweet Cicely," just like snowflakes. And in our fields it is such a poor frightened little weed of a flower you scarcely notice it,' said Mavis.

'But it's lovely if you look into it closely,' said Winfried. 'Some of the very tiniest flowers are really the most beautiful.'

Then they came in sight of a stretch of hair-bells -white and blue-the kind that in some places are called "blue-bells."'