Front matter (continued 4)

June, who had felt some awe for the high-collar pride of little Londoners, seeing this triumph of geniality, this evidence of the lessening of two-penny vanity, sang joy-songs, and encouraged her comrades. They followed her lead with whoo-whooping! What a time!

Then the newspapers and the pulpits began to speak. A great project was evolved and set in being. There must be in every district--the press panjandrums declared with elf-induced unanimity a Christmas supper, after the good old jolly style. Funds were started to save any call upon the rates. Gifts of edibles, drinkables, and current coin rolled in.

Mayors and councillors, workers in churches, chapels, conventicles of all sorts, and of no sort; political women and plodding housewives; dukes' sons, cooks' sons, sons of belted earls with their sisters and their cousins and their aunts; my Lady Bountiful and my lady who scrubs--these with all and sundry came together in a spirit of splendid camaraderie to consider ways and means of establishing the Christmas joy-feasts.

Town-halls, village rooms, and other suitable places in all parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were made ready for the great celebration. Mountains of food and rivers of delectable liquid were prepared. Chefs, professional, amateur and very amateur, went to work with a will. Localities bragged of their poultry and puddings. Small boys walked about with glistening eyes; small girls, telling their evening toll of fairy stories, got into the habit of ending their "happy ever afterwards" with the assurance that not a year passed without the wedded prince and princess having a Christmas supper with their people.

'Twas bliss to be alive. Scrooges a thousand-fold were converted wholesale. The fairies, all were working during the entire twenty-four hours of the day; and somehow--somehow they actually managed to squeeze into that ordered period of time an additional twenty minutes. How it was done they only know. Really, they are wonderful--those fairies!

Nevertheless, despite this general agreement of feeling, and unprecedented flow of goodwill, a few exalted persons and their imitators had managed to keep apart from it. They were but a few here and there, but the fact of their silent opposition was painful. There were blots on the jollity.

The Duke of Armingham was not one of them. His Grace, during that period of preparation, seemed to return to youth. His energy was wonderful. He became adept at hammering tacks, and probably nailed up more Goodwill mottoes than anyone else of his years. It was he who devised the plan of plastering dead walls with red and green cartoons, representing prominent men and women of all parties, sects, and classes united in the goodwill of Christmas.

His posters added considerably to the brightness and humour of the streets. But the Duke went just a little too far; though, in the Pepysian phrase, it did one's heart good to see him scuttle round a corner, after having pasted a picture to the front-door of a leading militant suffragist.

He used to come home after the midnight hour, as trembling and wide-eyed as the triumphant Brer Rabbit; his hands and clothing a-muck with bill-stickery. No mischievous bad boy could have been more happily guilty than he; and the way he put on his pince-nez to brazen it out before the Duchess, would have been a picture for Keene.

Certainly the Duke was not of the ungracious elect; but, alas, just as assuredly his Duchess was! Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss and her glistering circle of human dross also remained significantly apart from the general rejoicing and good-fellowship.

June determined to concentrate her attentions on the Duchess.

It was the week before Christmas. The fairy preened herself carefully, for who would conquer must wear nice clothes. Bim placed the crown upon her head and then clambered to the tip-top chimney-pot above Paradise Court to watch her, as a flash of flower-light, journeying towards the vanquishing of that opponent.

As June flew, she rejoiced at the sights beneath her. London was now rich with areas of sweetness and light--the reward of her influence. Old blemishes and ugliness were for ever removed; colour and beauty reigned. It was a sight for tired fairy eyes. The great metropolis was positively handsome.

One by one, fairies who felt they deserved a holiday flew up and followed her, so that by the time she arrived at Armingham House a train of twenty attended her. The more the merrier! They were a jovial company.

The fairies settled on the steps by the great closed door. June opened it. One touch of wand and it swung back obediently. The Armingham butler, then coming down the inside stairs, gaped with amazement.

"My gracious!" he exclaimed. "Them fastenings are done for."

He shut the door with a slam, reopened it and examined the lock. All seemed in trim. He tugged at his left whisker--sign of wine-cellar perplexity. "The world nowadays is getting that rummy," he soliloquized. "I dunno! Those bloomin' fairies, I suppose."

So it was. Many a true word is spoken in bewilderment. The elves--delighted to hear this tribute, however involuntary, to their effectiveness--joined hands, raced and sang in a ring about him. They were mad with happiness, jollier far than legendary grigs and sandboys.

The butler stood in the centre of the marble hall in a maze of indecision, yet at the same time strangely pleased, till their romp was ended. Then with a shriek of joy, which his clay ears were incapable of hearing, the fairies clambered about him. From his waist upwards they clung to him; made him their vehicle. June sat enthroned on his baldness. He was an honoured man.

As he went upstairs, Sparks, the Duchess's maid, happened to pass down them. She saw his smiling face, and crowsfeet of kindliness, not often visible, about his eyes.

"La! Mr. Gootle, what's this?" she asked.

"Company for her Grace, Sparks," he answered, pompously.

The lady's-maid stared, then ran on giggling. "Gootle's got 'em!" she murmured, not untruthfully. She saw possibility for sniggering gossip when she reached the housekeeper's room.

The Duchess was in the library going through her visitors' list, deciding on the guests to be invited to her next dinner-party, writing the names of the selected on a large half-sheet.

The butler entered the library. At once the fairies descended from him and clustered about the Duchess and the writing-table.

Gootle was suddenly aware of the fact that his entrance was purposeless. The object that had taken him there had departed. He struggled with his brains to think of a reasonable excuse for the intrusion.

"Yes, Gootle?" the Duchess inquired.

"Ahem, your Grace, the--front-door flew open."

The Duchess laid down her pen and--looked.

"Really, Gootle! Should I have been troubled with that?" Her glance was ominous.

"Very sorry, your Grace, very sorry," he mumbled, fluttering his hands like flappers, and withdrew. He felt slapped. He wanted to kick himself. "Mass! hass! hass!" he soliloquized. "What did I do that for?" He paused on the stairs. "Them bloomin' fairies!" he said again.

June and her companions were ripe for their form of usefulness. They did nothing for the time, but sat silently, perched picturesquely on the table, mantelpiece, chandeliers and bookcases, while the Duchess continued the selection and completed her list.

She drew a line to indicate that it was ended.

June touched the pen. The Duchess scrawled through the line, in effect deleting it, and wrote an additional name.

"Mrs. Barnett Q. Moss." Then she drew a second line.

She frowned and wondered at herself. She ran her pen along the intrusive name to cancel it, but made no mark; the ink was dry. Her frown was repeated.

The Duchess jabbed her pen into the inkpot, dipping viciously; and then, instead of using it to complete the cancelling of the offending name, wrote a letter. She did not even use the form of the third person.

"DEAR MRS. MOSS,

"I have not exactly the pleasure of your acquaintance, but my son Geoffrey has on more than one occasion enjoyed your hospitality, and has spoken to me about your kindness to him. Will you give me the pleasure of knowing you? If you could spare the time to take tea with me here to-morrow at four o'clock, I should be very glad.

"I shall look forward to seeing you then, unless I receive a note or telephone-message to the contrary.

"Yours sincerely,

"EDITH ARMINGHAM."

She found the address in the Red Book, sealed the envelope, rang for Gootle, and despatched the invitation.

Then she rustled to the fireplace and looked at the flames.

"Now why--why did I do that?"

There was no answer. The fairies looked at each other and laughed. Then they made slides on the lid of the piano.

The Duchess was angry.

CHAPTER XVIII

A COMPACT

The brougham which bore the delighted but highly nervous Mrs. Barnett Moss to Armingham House set her down before the door at two minutes to the hour. To be two minutes better than punctual was one of the iron rules of the millionaire; his wife remembered it when paying an advantageous call. As the clock in the boudoir struck four she entered the presence.

June also was there. Her companions of yesterday had returned at dawn to their posts of duty, the pillar-boxes; but Bim she had fetched, in measure to supply their places.

The elves had made a night of it, and what a night!

Every room, corner and cranny in the great establishment had been visited and explored. The butler's pantry they exulted in--to this day Gootle does not know who put the salad-dressing into his particular whisky. The conservatory was for a time transformed. The flowers within it lost their lethargy, and knew again gladness of life. The fairies played hide-and-seek among the shelves and statuary of the library. The dining-table, whereon June had danced on the night of her début at Armingham House, was in the evening used for many series of fairy rounds--the full score of princely people tracing triumphant dances around and about their leader and lady.

Only Geoffrey Season and his mother were dining at home that night, so there was ample room for the elves to disport in. The butler and his footmen four, looking solemnly at the damask emptiness, were puzzled by--they knew not what! There seemed to be things there, filling the emptiness, that never were there. O dear! A strange world!

Geoffrey was the person most strongly impressed by the atmosphere of enchantment. His conversation shone with unusual brightness, it bubbled with happiest effervescence; but the Duchess, conscious of the amazing invitation to, and certain coming on the morrow of, the millionaire's wife, was far down in the glooms, weighed down with the dumps. She could not bring herself to tell even her son of that incomprehensible accident; and went to bed early, giving Sparks an unheavenly time.

The hours of Faerie came. When the moon was throwing a silver bar over the blue silk coverlet; when stars peeped through the windows; when the night-light's tiny flame was modestly gleaming; when her Grace's breathing made music in the room; then fairies, a score and one, might have been seen flitting about the bed and before the mirrors, swinging on silver fittings, clinging to tapestry hangings, sleeping placidly, sharing the laced pillow with the Duchess of Armingham.

And so for the night we leave that company of immortals and their quarry, and come to the important to-morrow.

The Duchess woke with a light heart; and, when Sparks brought the morning tasse, was inclined to carol.

The maid saw the unwonted gleam of geniality, precisely at the moment when her mistress remembered Mrs. Moss. Sparks watched the glow of kindness fade, die, and the Duchess become herself again.

The state of high-born sulkiness did not last long. June, except for the hour of siesta wherein she returned to Paradise Court to fetch Bim, was constantly beside the Duchess. She spent the whole of that day in preparing the atmosphere for a great conversion. Her magic permeated every part of and person in the great house--from boudoir to boot-boy. Her influence, so real and sweetly haunting, affected the Duchess deeply. She still kept a proud face, but inwardly was sorely inclined to surrender and give herself to the fairies. Her heart was converted already, but still she steadily resisted the new tendencies.

The Duchess was one of the obstinate company who insist on dying in the last ditch.

Acute dislike at having to entertain Mrs. Moss was the obstacle which blocked the fulfilment of her good intentions. Yet that involuntary act of hospitality was an essential step in the progress of Fairydom. It was necessary for June to govern the will of the Duchess in an affair that mattered, and to conquer a great prejudice; but at this stage of progress the prospect seemed retarding the march. Her Grace fought hard against the better inclinations. She was afraid of vulgarity. That was the principal fear. She had heard so much of Liberty Hall and its parties--though not in an unkind way--from Geoffrey.

Mrs. Moss, for her part, also was fighting a battle--against strange nervousness. Ushered in by Gootle, she smiled painfully, mournfully shook her head, and said "How-do!" The Duchess received her with icy graciousness.

The tea in the beginning was a commonplace festival; June knew better than to make her puppets talk seriously during its earlier stages. It was necessary for the Duchess to thaw somewhat; for Mrs. Moss to recover confidence. They must have pause.

They had it, and discussed nonentities and silken politics.

At last June felt the opportune time for action had come. She popped her crown upon the Duchess's head, while Bim, armed with the wand, made himself comfortable in Mrs. Moss's narrow lap.

December was suddenly turned to May. Awkwardness went, geniality prevailed. The Duchess no longer wondered at having given the invitation, or spent suspicious thoughts on her visitor. Everything was natural, kind, and proper. June had won at last.

"I am very glad you came, Mrs. Moss," she said heartily; "there is so much I want to talk to you about."

"It's very good of you to say so, dear Duchess," was the enthusiastic answer.

Bim flourished the wand to stem a current of gush. Mrs. Moss pursed lips and waited.

The Duchess in her brain was wondering what next her tongue would say.

"Have you ever wondered," she asked, "how strange it is that people should go through life, and wilfully refuse to become better acquainted? Why should there be barriers between us or any people? Caste, class-distinctions, are merely artificial. 'The rank is but the guinea stamp,' said Mr. Burns, the poet--it was quoted by the Morning Post yesterday, in a striking article on 'The Aristocracy of Elfdom.'"

"Was it?" said Mrs. Moss, who was puzzled at this line of talk.

"Yes, and it is true."

"Oh, Duchess, if--if a Duchess says so; but I shouldn't have thought----" was the stammering reply.

The poor lady was bewildered. Armingham's Duchess had been in good report and ill, especially ill, the proudest of the proud; fair game and a favourite target for the derision and admiring envy of the merely smart. A thousand stories, increasing with piquancy as they aged, had been set afloat in illustration of her arrogance. Thousand-leaved fictions had blossomed about her. Her origin and upbringing were the kernels of many pretty tales. If rancour wished--as rancour frequently did wish--to hurl epithets at the coroneted caste, five to one the Duchess of Armingham was its pet Aunt Sally. No one in Society had been more pilloried, abused, and envied. The spite and verisimilitude of the attacks were quickened and strengthened by the supreme, unaffected indifference with which her Grace had disregarded them.

Mrs. Moss, although she made social use of Geoffrey, had taken her share in throwing the garbage of scandal. She had often seen the Duchess on her drives through the Parks, and would have given much for a bowing acquaintance with her; but as that was not to be, she, in sheer chagrin, helped to increase the yellow stream of disparagement.

And now the longed-for impossible was happening--this great lady, this enviable aristocrat, this butt for the diatribes of the little, this queen of the exclusive few, was seated familiarly with her, entertaining her, talking easily of democracy, aristocracy, equality.

No wonder Mrs. Moss was bewildered. She pinched herself to be sure it was not one of her dazzling dreams. Bim, to fortify the reality, pinched her too. Yes, there could be no doubt. She could feel it was true.

"A Duchess, you say?" and the hostess smiled sadly. "The world is mistaken when it thinks a woman of rank is to be envied."

"But the privileges!"

"The privileges, Mrs. Moss? The responsibilities of station, I assure you, outweigh them far. Familiarity is apt to render them mere nuisances. What privileges do you particularly refer to?"

The guest in her turn smiled. It was something of a pitying smile--ah, the wisdom of the worldlings! How much the dear Duchess must have been misunderstood!

"Why, the entry everywhere. I guess the folk who shut their doors on a Duchess would soon be inmates of Bedlam. You can talk as a partner with any of the people at the top, can't you? The wealthiest, proudest houses welcome you."

"Is that a great privilege?" she was answered. "I confess I find the social round dull--unutterably dull, with its receptions and dinners, when you must attend them."

"I wish you and the Duke would honour my house one evening," Mrs. Moss ventured to say. "I warrant you wouldn't find our parties dull."

"Ah, my son Geoffrey"--she remembered only the milder stories about Liberty Hall--"has told me of some pleasant little parties at your house."

A pang went through the lady of Liberty Hall.

"So that is how he described them!" thought she. Praise so comparative stabbed her. She was aggrieved and nearly brought to angry tears. Only a few days earlier a weekly paper without a circulation had--for a consideration--filled two columns with an illustrated description of her latest affair, giving a long list of invited guests with swollen names, and now--now--now! to have it referred to as a "pleasant little party"! It was galling!

Bim, thinking she needed it, pinched her again.

Meanwhile, the Duchess was calmly talking pure democratics, to the much amusement of June. The crown was working with a vengeance. Its impotence in that particular case was ended. Six months of incomplete success, commencing with absolute failure, had ended with this result. No wonder the fairy and the gnome were feeling cock-a-whoop! Victory--absolute Victory--was advancing.

The Duchess became serious. She arrived at the fairy's purpose, and believed it to be her own.

"Are you a democrat, Mrs. Moss?" she asked, and put her lorgnette to her eyes in order to see, as well as to hear, the answer.

Every nerve and atom of the vain and selfish lady quivered in protest at such a question.

"No, madam, that I am not," was the decided answer.

"Dear, dear!" sighed the Duchess.

"I left all pretty fancies over yonder. Mr. Barnett Q. Moss and I are emphatically not anything so silly!"

"You left them over yonder?"

"Yes, we did!"

"In the United States?"

"In the U-nited States of America!"

"Dear, dear!" said her Grace again.

June was now on the Duchess's shoulder, nestling in soft folds of Irish lace. She sat up eagerly, the better to hear the discourse.

"I am a democrat, Mrs. Moss!" the remark came sharply, like a shot.

"No, no, Duchess! Impossible!" The poor lady, in sheer amazement, nearly shrieked the protest. Her appeal made the teacups shiver. In her mind's eye she saw the Duchess waving a red flag, and bawling for rights for somebody.

"Yes, a democrat!"

Mrs. Moss shuddered, and squeezed her mimic handkerchief into a ball. She pressed her lips tightly together, and listened with horror.

"Yes, a democrat--one who believes that all human beings should endeavour to give each other equal opportunities. I did not always think this. Dear me, let me confess, I did not think it even yesterday. Something has happened, something is always happening. The world seems getting topsy-turvy; no, not that; but certainly nearer the stars, without being farther from the flowers. Mrs. Moss, I was a proud and unkind woman until yesterday. But from the instant I penned my invitation to you, my old pride, my old--yes, I must say it--arrogance, obstinacy, emptiness of heart, gradually went from me. It is like a conversion. I am changed, and--a humbler woman. I recognize now, as I have not done hitherto, my personal limitations, and the wrong I do my fellow-creatures when I enjoy great good fortune without making any return to mankind for it."

The Duchess was dreamily silent for a little while. A mist was before her eyes. It seemed as if a cold mist had been removed from about her heart. She was no less the great lady for having discovered her older isolation to have been a condition poorer far than this realization of sisterhood with the rest of mankind.

Mrs. Moss did not venture on any answer. She was in a curious condition of mixed emotions. Now and then, while her hostess had been talking she had wondered whether some of the words used were intentionally barbed and edged. Why had the Duchess's old pride begun to diminish when she penned the invitation to her? Was that Miching Malecho? Did it mean mischief?

Mrs. Moss fell into a brown study pondering this littleness. She was no fool; her personality was not quite all vanity, joy in wealth, and greed for pleasure. She had a methodical brain, and possibly a heart somewhere under her corsets. The words addressed to her were effectual.

"You have not been negligent," at last she remarked gently. "Your name and the Duke's are on all charity lists. You help good objects with what they ask for--money."

The Duchess shook her head.

"It was always a proud giving. That charity did not come from kindness, it came from pride."

"No, Duchess; you are taking an unfair advantage of yourself."

"I think not, Mrs. Moss. But I need not talk penitence now. If this--this tendency holds me to-morrow, as I can truly say I hope it will, I shall do better by expressing it in deeds. I want now, if you please, to speak with you on a more serious question, and to invite your co-operation."

Mrs. Moss wriggled. "It is coming!" she told herself. This sounded so like the familiar prelude to a begging appeal.

She was agreeably disappointed. The Duchess did not even look the word purse-strings, but still required something that involved sacrifice.

"You have, of course, heard of these municipal Christmas festivities?" she asked.

"Only vaguely!" was the airy answer.

"But the papers have been full of them!"

"I only read certain pages of certain papers--in Society one must be careful; but, yes, I have heard something about them--sufficient to know that they are amusements for the many, not for the few. I belong to the few."

"They are for all," murmured the Duchess.

"Then I fear I can take but little interest in them."

Bim raised the wand vindictively; June motioned him to wait. He obeyed.

"I am sorry to hear you say so!" The Duchess was shocked at this amazing indifference, being herself possessed of the convert's earnestness.

"Oh!"

There was a weight of meaning in the interjection. Not for the eighth of an instant had Mrs. Moss dreamed that the supremely exclusive Duchess of Armingham could truly sympathize or co-operate in those corporate efforts. She knew, only too well, that the "certain pages" she condescended to read had mentioned the Duchess as one of the dissentient minority, and because of that very abstention had herself refrained from joining the movement, and had infected her followers with a similar intention.

Now had come a new change. Her keen, shrewd wits were absolutely bewildered. What should she do? She answered her question by doing nothing, by listening.

"I am sorry to hear you say so," the Duchess repeated, "because it is a unique effort on the part of all. Never before have we had such a union of people of all degrees and classes, as are joined in making this effort."

"But--but--forgive me, Duchess--surely you?" The question was not verbally completed, but it shone in the lady's eye.

"Were recently not in sympathy with the movement?"

"Yes, Duchess, that is my inquiry put into plain English."

"I confess that is so. It was wrong of me to decide as I did, but it is never too late to mend. I am going to help now with all my powers, as my husband has done. Will you join and help too? My request to you to come and meet me to-day was directly due to my zeal for the movement. ('Dear me!' thought the Duchess. 'Was that so?') It seemed such a pity that so noble and practically unanimous an effort should be ignored by anyone who could help it--especially by people of standing." The flattery, though unintended, was not without effect. "I knew you did not purpose to participate in it; neither did I. I have changed my mind, and given up my unsocial intention. Will you, Mrs. Moss?"

"No, Duchess, I cannot!"

"I am sorry you say so, but why?"

"It would make me the laughing-stock of my set."

June motioned to the gnome. He clung to a hanging watch-chain, and held the wand to the recalcitrant lady's lips. She resisted its power. Her mouth was obstinate.

"Surely not, Mrs. Moss. I have heard you are the social queen of an influential following. Those people, whoever they are, would surely come with you, and so render our festivity representative and complete."

More flattery, insidious and unintentional--such tactics being as foreign to the Duchess as grease-paint. Oh, those fairies, the diplomatists!

"It seems so unreasonable. So like--so like a scene in a pantomime or fairy-play."

"Exactly, that--that is the joy of it!"

June, delighted, kissed the Duchess.

"It is against reason and common-sense!"

"Oh no, Mrs. Moss. It is the best kind of reason, and is absolute common-sense!"

"But, please tell me; it's beyond me--what good can the meeting, in such manner, of all sorts of people--noble and shady folk--do?"

"Every kind of good. It will teach the reality of human brotherhood, and tend to make the shady folk--and the noble folk--nobler."

"To be utterly forgotten on the morrow!"

"I think not. I hope not. Once get representatives of all classes and conditions to meet in considerate fraternal intercourse, dining together fifty at one table, and gulfs of mutual suspicion, indifference, dislike, will be crossed never, I hope, to be completely divided again. It is a great idea, hazardous at first, daring always, but now reasonable and most promising. A real step forward in human progress. A large fact of hope."

Her Grace was eloquent. The fairy crown had certainly worked wonders.

Mrs. Moss hesitated still, and Bim lowered the wand with despair. A thick crust of vanity and pride in material things had to be dissolved. She pursed her lips obstinately, and looked at the fire. June thereupon flew across and dumped the crown on her head.

It worked.

"Yes, on consideration, I agree," was the declaration. "I shall be delighted to co-operate. It will mean money--never mind that! My husband and I can afford to give. It will mean service--devoted service. That, too, shall be gladly given by both of us. It is an object worth living for! I will come, and make my friends come, too; but, Duchess"--June removed the crown, and herself donned it--"I must make one condition, please."

"Yes?"

"That you and the Duke come to my New Year's party!"

"If you will invite us--with pleasure!"

"I do invite you--now!"

"Then I accept."

So the compact was made.

When the Duchess and Mrs. Moss were at last alone, each asked herself this question: "What is the world coming to?"

June knew. Bim knew. Oberon in Fairyland had an inkling.

CHAPTER XIX

NEW YEAR'S DAY

Croakers croaked, of course, but the Christmas Festival, accomplished, was a great success, and no one enjoyed it more than the croakers--when they knew themselves unnoticed. It was a roaring win for optimists. The expectations were everywhere excelled. The dinner was worthy of the intention. The conversations, music, songs, and games, went with a ring. Not a dissentient note was heard. High and humble, rich and poor, met for that occasion as comrades, and the good effects of their coming together remained. The world was, henceforward, better humoured, gentler, more considerate than ever it had been.

It was a triumph to fairies and to the less fortunate folk who are human. There let us leave it!

New Year--the Feast of Good Resolutions--arrived with its loads of customary high intentions. That day brought an opportunity which the fairies meant to make the most of. But the task was not entirely easy, for old habit would be potent.

A New Year's resolution in the past had generally, almost invariably, two necessary distinct parts--the making and the breaking. That was its history. If New Year's Day was the Feast of its Creation, Twelfth Night might certainly be called the funeral day, belated. The building and the forgetting of good resolutions had become such a time-honoured process that each of the stages was as easy as breathing. Lightly entered into, the intention could be even more lightly lost. That was the fairies' difficulty. It would be simple enough to get people to resolve well; but to prevent their having a Twelfth Night of forgetfulness would be a task Titanic in comparison. Still, they must try.

June, by means of her myrmidons, hunted up the ex-Lord Mayor, Sir Titus Dods--now a baronet in the courts of Edward and Oberon--and caused him to come from his retirement at Hampstead to lead in the particular effort.

He induced every newspaper as its special New Year supplement to give away an attractive card on which practicable good resolutions could be written. The cards, inscribed, would be preserved until this New Year was old and out. It was the Mansion House procedure of last May-time repeated, spread over a very far wider area, destined to be similarly successful.

A change came over casual converse. Instead of using such old phrases and time-worn tags as "How d'ye do?" or "Cold day, isn't it?" people greeting each other asked, "Resolutions going strong?"

It was surprising how much more interesting meetings became, and how invariably the answer was "Yes." Self-respect struggled to attain the affirmative answer.

So there was progress in all ways, splendid progress.

June's company was growing so rapidly--every hour of the night and day bringing at least one recruit--that her mighty mimic ladyship was able to concentrate attention on the so-called Smart Set. She remembered the New Year's party to be held at Liberty Hall and went to it, taking a regiment of elf-folk with her--Bim the only gnome.

The fairies clustered about the door and stairways, and made fun of the white-headed footmen.

"Why did these voluminous mortals wear that mess?" The night was bright with their satire.

Regularly and rapidly the company of guests arrived. They came with their usual boisterousness, and then--and then----

The influence of the elves had a curious effect on hosts and on guests. It proved strangely restraining. Barnett Q. felt like a Sunday-school superintendent at a too-French French play, a humid pink of uncomfortable propriety. Mrs. Moss was, as usual, nervously fluttered with a new anxiety frightening her heart--how would her guests, destined to bask in ducal radiance, behave?

Liberty Hall was metamorphosed. The noise, display, and wildness which heretofore had made its functions famous were rapidly replaced by a superfine straightness--a Bowdlerized bonhomie, self-conscious and constrained. The rabble of Comus was muzzled.

Hoary sinners and flaxen-headed mondaines were prim, simpering, moralizing, painfully on their goodily-good behaviour. They were nerve-fettered, with spirits weighed down. They knew it, they felt it, and could not comprehend or complain. The fairies held them in thrall. From the elves' point of view it was supremely funny. Those spirit-masters of the revels laughed till many of them became bright scarlet.

The Duke and Duchess of Armingham, accompanied by Geoffrey--who had done his best to induce his mother not to go--arrived at ten. Mrs. Moss breathed a sigh of relief. Now, come what might, her party was justified. Whatever the ultimate verdict might be, Vanity Fair must approve something. She had got the Duchess!

The new guests, followed by the fairies, trooped into the ballroom. The band struck up a barn-dance, which was footed with decorum. Everybody was surprised, the Duchess agreeably so.

The Duke put on pince-nez, and went in search of the prettiest possible partner he could find. He had come to his second youth, and meant to enjoy it. He found himself murmuring complimentary epigrams to Lalage and Chloe, written by himself during college days when under the glamour of Horace. He wondered if they would do.

Geoffrey talked of New-Year reforms to Barnett Q. with the seriousness of a budding legislator, and remembered his previous experience at Liberty Hall. What a difference! Then had been riot; this was the other extreme. Where was the reason why?

The company consisted--he saw--mostly of the same people who previously had wrought vulgar tumult there; every face was more or less familiar to him; but their manners, hitherto blatant, were now positively mealy-mouthed. Roaring lions expressed themselves with the modesty of penny whistles. What did it mean? Bounders, ninnies, minxes had left off their meannesses and become decently human.

Any attempt at vulgarity was instantly hushed and checked. Lame efforts at ostentation were remorselessly snubbed. Geoffrey had learned several things during the last few days; his eyes had been better opened. He put this condition of strained propriety down to its right source, the fairies; but her Grace, his mother, had also something to do with it. Mrs. Moss was positive it was mainly due to the dear Duchess.

The coming of the Arminghams was certainly an event in the social history of Liberty Hall. If it had not been for the strange sense of constraint which held her, Mrs. Moss would have exulted, pleased as a young redskin with his first scalp. As it was, she fluttered like a nervous hen round an ostrich-egg, knowing she had not lived in vain.

It was the Duke who, the fairies willing, broke down the barriers of undue restraint. The elf-atmosphere, which subdued the loud rich, roused and awakened him. He was inclined to rollick. Breaking through the established order of things, he induced Barnett Q. to start an old country dance. The experiment took. Feet which earlier in the evening had been lamely waltzing or half-heartedly two-stepping became lively with Sir Roger de Coverley. It was a revolution, transformation complete.

Clean simplicity came to people who had always deemed it folly to be simple. Whole-heartedly the guests joined in the dance--they hurried to take places in long laughing rows--the Duchess herself came down from the proud mountains to go trotting through a smiling avenue with her partner, Barnett Q. The fairies, too, made shimmering lines, and improved on the movements of the human-folk. There were no more unsocial or ugly dances that night. The party was for all the world like one played by happy children.

Girls of blasée eighteen became young for the first time since they left the nursery; gilded youths resisted tendencies towards brainless talk and inelegant posing; oldsters, whose dyed hair and waxed moustaches whispered grey stories, forgot affectations and selfishness; ladies of middle age declined to be wall-flowers longer. They asked idlers to partner them in a natural feminine way. Hilarity was alive. The card-room was abandoned. Fairies were helping lovers along the happy pathway. The clock most musically clanged twelve in sympathy.

"My love," declared Barnett Q., panting, to his wife, "this is the best we have ever had."

"The dear Duchess!" said she. There was little credit for the fairies from her.

The dance and the party went on, and momentarily grew brighter with joy.

Supper-time came. The meal was to have been a series of snacks, fizz and rushes as usual; but June ruled otherwise. She had learned that the time men are more likely to be serious, and are certainly most easily influenced, is meal-time; so she ordained that the whole company of guests should go to the supper-room together, and although this necessitated some give-and-take and a great deal of squeezing--borne by young couples with a patience beyond their years--it was managed. Plates and cutlery were soon a-clatter, and the hum of happy conversation arose. Meanwhile, the elves distributed themselves amongst the company. Their time had come.

June, with Bim marching behind her, went along the tables to make sure that her helpers were in their places. Wine-glasses were touched with magic. The champagne sparkled with extra enchantment.

June danced back to her place at the head of the chief table, and rapped the knuckles of Mr. Moss. He rose, raised a glass, and proposed a loyal toast. It was drunk with cordiality. The company, sipping their wine, absorbed magic.

"Now," he said, as June put the compelling crown upon him, "I'm going to ask you to drink another toast, what I will call the toast of the evening, 'The Fairies'!"

The outburst of enthusiasm that followed reminded June of the banquet at the Mansion House. New wine, enchanted, was poured into glasses wand-touched. The liquor carried fresh inspiration to the human lips.

"The Fairies! The Fairies! Oberon! Titania!" the guests cried.

June and Company--all except wingless Bim, who perforce must stay squatting on a bunch of purple grapes--flew above and about, pouring charms on the mortals; singing a song whilst flying which the men-things nearly heard.

The flying procession went gaily trailing thrice round the room; then the fairies dropped back to their proper places. The shouting now must wait a while. June gave Barnett Q. a peremptory command. He was obedient as a marionette.

"May I make a speech?" he asked his guests.

"You must!" was the unanimous answer.

He struck the attitude of oratory, and successfully overcame his lingering tendency to Yankee mannerisms.

"As we age," he began sententiously, "not many of us really grow wiser. So, if you please, we will--every one of us--be young again--and immediately. That way, and that way only, can we do what the fairies demand of us. Those careless youths, the children, have amazingly good opportunities, if only they knew it."

"Go right on, Barnett!" counselled his wife, who, even in this swelter of excitement, was keeping anxious eyes on the Duchess, hoping she would not be bored. There was little fear of that happening, however bald the new Moss philosophy might be.

The Duchess was, indeed, a fine picture of genial benevolence. She beamed and, practically a presiding presence there, enjoyed something of the satisfaction felt by a patron saint. Her former enemies would not have known her had they dreamed of scrutinizing her in the old cruel way.

"Are you in the mood for elf-wisdom?" the millionaire asked.

"We are!" Geoffrey answered, voicing the general feeling.

"Are you willing--ladies and gentlemen both--to be knights-errant, to go on a quest for the sake of the fairies?"

"We are! We are!"

Every one of them--men and women, boys and girls--answered this time. Would-be Britomarts and Calidores were plentiful as mushrooms in October; but the Blatant Beast they were to pursue was their own vanities, selfishness, vices. "Very well. The first requirement is that you at once write on your dance-programmes some such resolution as this: 'Not a day in this new year shall pass without my having made someone in the world happier by my works.' Phrase it as you please, my friends, but don't mistake my meaning."

"But what kind of works?" asked Sir Gussie, the calculating and precise, as he screwed in a heavy-rimmed monocle, to stare at this re-maker of manners.

"Use your eyes, my boy, and decide for yourself," was the prompt answer. "Look at the every-day sights of London, and then carry comfort to those who need."

Barnett Moss was in his element. He was the born manager. He ruled that assembly--by gracious permission of June--as effectually as he would have dominated a Board meeting. He would carry this thing through.

The pencils attached to the programmes were busily inscribing the fine promise. The butler and footmen attending the table supplied cards to those without them, and themselves surreptitiously wrote down similar good intentions. June, gratified by this pleasant spirit of theirs, made them a little better-looking--rather a good form of reward.

Enchantment was potent everywhere in the large excited room.

"Is it down?" Barnett asked. His little eyes glittered with excitement, as they always glittered when he was governing a masterly transaction.

"It is," was after a while the general answer.

"Now how to keep it. May I ask the Duchess of Armingham to assist the fairies in this?"

The Duchess bowed assent. The company clapped hands delightedly. Her Grace seemed changed. Could that smiling presence be she who had for so long been their bugbear? Many of that company, had they not been caught by the glamour of the occasion, would have doubted their senses as to her identity. The Duke poised his glasses and pursed his lips, studying her. He hardly knew his own wife.

"Good!" commented Barnett Q., confirming her assent; "this is how the Quest you knights are to follow shall be kept. Once every month, by call or by letter, every person here who has made and signed this promise must report to the Duchess its fulfilment; and let no one"--his voice took on accents of tremendous seriousness--"let no one who, by breaking this exacting resolution, proves unworthy, presume to darken the doorsteps of Armingham House!"

There was a great flutter and babble of talk as the serious words and their full purport sank into the minds of those addressed. To these worldlings, even in this sublimer mood, no more acceptable bait could be offered than the opportunity of a visiting friendship with the Duchess. The front-door of Armingham House was to them as the entrance to Paradise. To consort with such as she--a real leader of high-placed people--was a passport to supreme society, worth achieving, worth enjoying, worth retaining--the thing they most desired. It was the best effective means for securing good behaviour and destroying vulgarity that could be devised. But the Duchess, what did she think of this definite proposal?

The Duke, in his shrewd mind, had a good deal of doubt about it. He leaned forward to study the Duchess's face, to read her intention; and was amazed. She rose to her feet to make pronouncement.

"I shall be willing and glad to do what Mr. Moss has asked of me. He is the mouthpiece of the fairies, I understand that. I accept the task from them; and shall be proud to number amongst my personal friends the kind ones here who, by inscribing and signing their cards, as bidden, have taken what may be called a vow of personal service, following the quest of a social purpose. The first Tuesday afternoon in every month will be my reception day, when in town or at Armingham Castle. Will my new friends remember that?"

She resumed her seat. The interlude was ended. With new zest the assembly returned to the ball-room, and enjoyed their games and play. The artificial restraint that had held them earlier was gone. They had become gentle.

Some of them began their Quest that very night.

Sir Gussie, to whom gambling had been a profitable passion, and cards the first of pastimes, resolved in future to play for counters; and, as amends for past misgains, went along a dingy street and dropped a sovereign into five-and-twenty shabby letter-boxes.

Ladies'-maids, who, yawning and jaded, had waited till dawn for their mistresses, were greeted with smiles and thanks--a welcome change from the wonted shrill-tempered crossness which almost invariably had been their recompense hitherto.

One bright youth--with the earnestness of a beginner, which even when misguided is something splendid--devoted his powers to helping a drunken man homeward. Another sparkling boy at once totted up a list of his debts and made plans of economy whereby he might redeem them. Another went off post-haste to write an apology to a family he--through selfishness--had wronged. A fourth--Mr. Harris, a motorist, with whom Geoffrey Season had half an acquaintance--vowed to walk five miles daily for two months along a car-infested road, to see for himself what road-hog tyranny meant.

And so on, and so forth, in all manner of ways, wise and unwise, but always sincere and determined, the beginnings of the amelioration of the Smart Set began.

It worked well, after a little while, as every movement launched by the fairies is bound to do. The coming together of the sudden plutocracy with true aristocrats had good effects--broadening and strengthening--on both. It taught restraint, consideration, responsibility. Social organizations increased in numbers, sway and influence. No hospital or charitable purpose was now hampered for lack of funds. Processions of the unemployed ceased to be. There were fewer children in the streets of poverty: the childless rich had adopted them.

Humanity was linked closer, with cords of great kindness. No one was better affected by it than the Duchess of Armingham. She remained genial, a power persuasive; and grew in bounty, charm and kindness. She felt something of a fairy queen herself.

So June won the stronghold. The poor and the rich, the weak, the proud and the great, were with her now. She was leading a host, human and immortal. Her madness was justified.

CHAPTER XX

IN PARLIAMENT

February arrived, succeeding a period of immense elf-activity. Mankind was rapidly waking up to the improved condition of things; more and more recruits were coming from Fairyland to keep men's purposes kind and bright; the metropolis was cleaning itself vigorously, and putting on colour, so that from all parts of the world people journeyed to its streets, to gather æsthetic inspiration and delight.

Londoners realized at last that they were people of a majestic city, that the grime and sordid ugliness which for ages had shrouded their buildings veiled a world rich with poetry and beauty. With their civic soul requickened, they studied and were proud of the thousand years of living history--their heritage. They wore their hats with a cock. Their stride lengthened. Their chins showed disdain for the gutter. The ancient Romans, the Venetians and Florentines of medieval Italy, were not more truly town-patriotic than were the inhabitants of the rediscovered London.

February had arrived; and midway through the despised, misunderstood month, the Houses of Parliament met. Writs to fill vacant seats were moved for. Geoffrey Season was back at Armingham Castle, strenuously electioneering, pursuing the last lap of his candidature.

The newspapers describe elections so well that it is not necessary for this poor pen to tell the story of that particular battle between the Buffs and the Blues. It is enough to state that the foreseen took place--it is, despite the Disraelian dictum, nearly always the expected that happens--Lord Geoffrey Season was put at the top of the poll, defeating his Blue opponent, Mr. Tutherman, by a few less than seven hundred votes, which was rather better than the average in that constituency.

He arrived at the House of Commons, the youngest, and, therefore, the most sanguine member of Parliament, ten days after the session had commenced. He purposed determinately to carry into effect the projects of the fairies.

When he was introduced to the Commons and took his seat, the Debate on the Address was still proceeding turgidly. Progress struggled feebly against a stream of talk.

June and Bim entered the House with Geoffrey; and as nowadays she went hardly anywhere in public without the accompaniment of a self-appointed bodyguard, full fifty fairies grouped around her. Queenly was her state as she surveyed, from the vantage-ground of the clock, the languid, sprawling gentlemen who comprised the House. For quite a time the elves watched the proceedings. They were amused and puzzled by many things; it would be inappropriate here to detail precisely what these were.

Then gradually the fairies grew bored; the infinite stream of talk went on and on. The light of their presences faded. Their glory was dwindling. Their strength, which is expressed in brightness, was gradually diminishing.

This wouldn't do! June roused herself, and gave Bim a push which sent him spinning and then sprawling on the floor of the House below. He rose indignant at this treatment, strode with his stiffest dignity to the table, and, with a spring and some effort, perched himself astride the mace.

From that moment the Commons began to be transformed. The fairies resumed their brightness, and shone with light which would have dazzled humanity had eyes of clay been able to realize immortal glories. The clock stopped--its mechanism was more atune to elf-influence than that of the prose-builders below. Members--for no particular reason that they knew--came trooping in; and within ten minutes every green bench on the floor of the House and in the galleries was packed.

June spread her wings, and flew over the heads of the legislators. Her companions followed her example. With wands they tapped the mighty brows of legislators, and prepared their minds for obedience. Members wearing hats were poked in the nape of the neck. All--without exception--were inoculated with magic. The Irish party became a little uproarious, and effectively facetious.

The stream of prose went on.

June gave Bim her wand, and bade him take the chair. He gravely clambered along the Treasury table, came to the trio of clerks, and, after bowing with due respect thrice, according to usage--his seat on the mace had touched him with Parliamentary decorum--the intrepid adventurer climbed the Speaker's robes and squatted soberly upon his wig. The dignity of Parliament was enhanced.

The gnome knew he was making history, so he took care to keep awake.

Mr. Speaker began to feel strangely nervous, to have forebodings--as if an unexpected precedent was about to be established.

Meanwhile the stream of prose went on. The present malefactor was ----, but his name shall not be immortalized! This is all I will say, O reader: he was of the opposite school of politics to you. Even members on his own side of the House began to be impatient. A few cried "'Vide!" but only feebly. His misdoing was condoned by the general indifference.

He went on lamenting and lamely protesting that the Government in the King's Speech had not included a Bill to regulate Charity Bazaars, and was endeavouring to institute a comparison with the social system of the ancient Assyrians. His peroration had been misplaced; he had begun with it. He had reached his seventhly. There were no signs of the approaching end, no means whatever of computing when that might be. He merely went on. His speech was like a long and muddy road on a splashy wet night.

June crowned Geoffrey. Obediently he rose.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, with the gesture that practice in the bedroom had made perfect. "This intolerable flow of drivel----"

"Order! Order!" cried a hundred voices.

The interrupted orator turned round to stare at Geoffrey with eyes of angry surprise.

Intervention came from the proper place. The Speaker was on his feet. Bim clung to the wig to prevent his displacement.

"The noble lord," said Mr. Speaker, in his most conciliatory and compelling manner, "is so young a member of the House that he merits every indulgence; but I must remind him that to interrupt an honourable member in any other way than by rising to a point of order is a serious breach of the procedure and order of this House."

Geoffrey had, of course, resumed his seat immediately the Speaker rose; but, authority having spoken, the crown would no more let him sit still, acquiescent, than it had allowed any of its human wearers to remain their normal selves. He rose again.

A tornado of cries of "Order!" greeted Geoffrey's further involuntary breach of obedience.

June flew across to the Speaker.

Old Parliamentary hands turned to look at their new colleague. His further breach of order was done with perfect manner. There was no shouting vulgarity about his interruption, but a definite purpose, pleasantly expressed. They rapidly summed him up. He was well-looking, well-dressed, good House-of-Commons form, yet with a refreshing look of determination in his eyes. Far within themselves the veterans began to admire and to wonder. Geoffrey's début, they felt, was full of promise; it marked a man of the future as surely as the Hartington yawn had done.

"He will do," they said; "impudence and brains." That was their verdict in the beginning. Shrewd were those front-benchers, but they did not quite know Geoffrey.

"May I apologize, Mr. Speaker, and explain----"

"I decline to give way," declared the important person whose pomposity and portentous drivel had provoked the elves' interruption.

"'Vide! 'vide!" cried a Labour man, merely in mischief.

June kissed the Speaker. Without blushing, yet with perfect grace and modesty, in the interests of true progress, she kissed him; while Bim, lying full length along the top of his wig, pressed the wand against his forehead, and willed him to do as the fairies required. Could any man successfully resist such powers? No! Even the first of Commoners could not.

The Speaker, as he stood waiting to deliver judgment, knew he was, though dazed through the brightness, even clearer-headed than usual. He was on the awesome edge of a precedent. He wondered how the decision then to be given would be received; ordinarily it would have filled the House with amazement, but the earlier inoculation with magic had already begun to take effect. The Speaker was aware of strange powers and presences about him.

The person of pompous prose, realizing that his dignity was endangered, again cried a protest; but he was so far away from the sympathies of his fellow-members--he had bored them so severely--that with clamour they shouted him down. Thanks to the fairies, every single member in that House hurled "Order!" at him.

Though technically quite in order, he was forced to subside. He felt badly treated; he was badly treated: and serve him jolly well right!

During the whole of the subsequent scene--a glorious page in the new English history--the nonentity sulked. Bim after a while went to sit on his knee, endeavouring to charge him with the elixir of elfdom; but it was difficult, at that stage of chronic self-esteem, for any good influence to pierce the crust of prejudice, jealousy, and indignation which bound him.

But the gnome went on making effort, and eventually did soften the pride of that creature of grandiose pomposity.

June's kiss was momentous; it bore with it power. The Speaker throughout his being trembled at her intangible touch; a smile, which would have been seraphic had it not been for the wig, brightened and gladdened his face.

The old Parliamentary hands glanced with swift inquiry at each other; then centred their gaze on him. What was coming?

"This is an exceptional occasion," he ruled, in level, serious tones. "It is an hour wherein a precedent may usefully be created. The noble lord may make his explanation. The House will listen with attention."

To their own surprise, the members cheered. What they knew full well was utterly wrong seemed to them then utterly right. Geoffrey was encouraged in his fairy courses. The crown, pressed on his smooth locks, filled him with elation of purpose. He felt as light-hearted and confident as a skylark--as powerful as a steam-engine; potent, joyful, energetic, controlling.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, "I must and do apologize sincerely to the honourable member for interrupting him in the manner I was compelled to do; but the protest I was forced to make was done in obedience to some superior power. I feel--we all feel--that in these latter days new and admirable forces have become effective in the national life."

"Hear, hear!" said the Leader of the Opposition.

"Ideals, opposed absolutely to many popular fixed opinions, are prevalent. The reign of ugliness, selfishness, materialism, is threatened by new and admirable influences. Old forms must modify themselves to suit younger and nobler purposes. It was, and is, as the spokesman of those powers that I have ventured so soon to intrude on the attention of the House."

A murmur of approval ran round the benches. No party was quite silent; the only individual who regarded Geoffrey with suspicion and coldness was the victim whom Bim was sitting on, trying to melt.

"I do protest," Geoffrey went on, "and I shall continue to protest, on behalf of progress and humanity, against the waste of public time through mere talk. The House has listened for three-quarters of an hour to the honourable member; and, I venture to say--with a further apology to him--was in no way inspired or benefited by what he was saying. His speech merely occupied time which is urgently required by the country for the fulfilment of practical, national business. In the name of the fairies, I assert--and the House will uphold me--that whenever an honourable member, no matter where his seat may be, obstructs or even wearies the House with a dull, dilatory, or unnecessary speech, I shall move that some Bill which makes for social progress, whether it appear on the paper or not, be immediately considered, shelving at once the subject under discussion at the time. This will insure that, in a very little while, what is publicly said will be worth saying, worth listening to; and that true legislation will march. For the purpose of preparing the House for this new course of progress--thank the fairies for the idea, Mr. Speaker, don't thank me!--I respectfully inform you, Sir, that I shall to-morrow bring in a Bill to abolish cemeteries, and so to reform our burial customs, that God's acre may be a pleasant garden, wherein people may contemplate immortality without being shocked by pagan stone-ware and unhealthy tombs."

The House thrilled at the calm words which expressed such revolution of methods. It was like suggesting that the world should be summarily dissolved and rebuilt. Yet members heard it like lambs, though even then one voice of interruption was raised.

A member who had entered the Chamber but a few moments before, and therefore was bewildered by the impropriety of Geoffrey's action, and astounded at the strained attention of the House, made formal inquiry.

"Is this in order, Mr. Speaker?"

"No," was the sharp reply, received in ominous silence. "The noble lord is quite out of order, but he may continue!"

Such a volley of cheering rang out that the lights overhead, behind their glass partition, shivered. A united sigh of satisfaction swelled into sound. Members were relieved that the outbreak against convention was not summarily stopped.

June kissed the Speaker again. She was proud, pleased, and grateful. He who had raised the point of order--Mr. Wash, the member for Somewhere--stared, staggered, subsided, squeezed himself into half a seat, and soon found himself, too, under the spell of elf-influence and in cordial sympathy with the reformer.

No more protests were made, then or thereafter, against Geoffrey's irregular courses. He hurried along his fairy way, happily free. He felt more like a skylark than ever. Admiration marched after him with giant strides. In those moments of Parliamentary début he was establishing a reputation which years of official perseverance might never have attained.

"Against useless speeches," he thundered, encouraged--the bedroom manner was effective--"the fairies wage their war. They have commissioned me, also, to declare their absolute disapproval of mere party politics."

There were murmurs of doubt here. The Irish party was even vociferous. June waved the wand; the Speaker raised his hand; the sounds subsided instantly. Never before had the Chair been so willingly obeyed.

"I know," said Geoffrey, "that the party system is a natural development, that without it political life would lose much of its vitality; but it has become a mockery, a nuisance, a mischief; it has gone too far."

"Hear, hear!" said an arch obstructor, the brim of whose silk hat was gay with five fairies.

A loud burst of laughter echoed his words. Saul was indeed among the prophets. That arch obstructor was notorious for his tactics and skill at the business. His moves were dictated solely by party means for party purposes. They had caused more than one good movement, promising the growth of national well-being, to be frustrated, injured or killed.

"I mean it!" he said emphatically, removing his hat to say so, and thereby causing the five fairies to flutter, sparkling, for some moments above him. Their radiance shone on his high bald brow. His fellow members saw enough of the elf-brightness actually to think it the light of his inspiration. They cheered a volley. Encouraged by this amazing tribute, much of it from men who hitherto had not admired him, he vowed secretly never, never, never again wantonly to hinder or harm a possible good cause by obstructive tactics. Saul, better than a prophet now, had become angelic.

"How many a Bill, supported by the most thoughtful members, in all parts of this House, has been sacrificed to some supposed partisan advantage," Geoffrey continued. "The history of legislation, Mr. Speaker, is choked with statesmanlike intentions, spoiled wantonly. That possibility must not continue."

"Hear, hear!"

"It must not continue. The fairies have given the word. They must be obeyed."

"Hear, hear! Hear, hear!"

"The party organizations, of course, must remain; general business still must be conducted along party lines, for opposition is practically as necessary as government; but the tendency to use party forces as an insensate block must be checked. Hereby, Mr. Speaker, I respectfully give notice that, while loyal to my party, the Buffs, I shall vote for a good Bill promoted by the Blues whenever I think it is calculated honestly to help the people. Buff or Blue, progress is much the same. I stand for true progress. Will at least twenty members from every one of the four parties in this House join with me, look with impartial eyes, as I shall look, at any and all Bills presented to it, and make efforts to pass them when their passage would be for the social good of the nation?"

Voices from every bench on the floor of the House, as well as from the parallel galleries above, cried accord with the intention. Geoffrey had his lead.

"Then that is settled. We--this new National Party--will be strong enough to help any Government, Buff or Blue, to carry good measures; and strong enough to force reasonable amendments in otherwise desirable Bills. We shall hold the balance of power, and progress will be made along a middle way. Mr. Speaker, I have done! I thank the House for its great consideration and courtesy to a new member. I have been listened to with a kindness which proves the patriotism of this historic House. I am proud so soon to have been permitted to suggest remedies for the congested condition of public business, and, thanks to the sympathy of honourable members, to have been enabled to devise means whereby causes inspired by the fairies will triumph."

He resumed his seat. Excited applause broke out. Members waved their hats. Three, at least, stood on the benches, the better to cheer. Geoffrey Season was a made Parliamentary man.

The House hushed to hear its Leader. Gracefully leaning on a Treasury box, he smiled a smile of philosophic doubt. Seeing this, June waved command to a bevy of elf-princes, who forthwith transferred the crown from Geoffrey's head to his. At once the smile broadened, its doubt diminished, its philosophy increased.

"The House," said he, "has listened to the noble lord with considerable interest and admiration; and rightly so. He is, it is true, a child in these things; but out of unsophisticated mouths the best wisdom sometimes comes. I am a House of Commons man myself, and any proposal calculated to diminish, or actually to injure, the machinery of this Chamber would be hotly resisted by me; but because a system has lasted a great many years--as the party system has done--is that any reason for its undisturbed continuance? My question must be answered in the negative. I say No; and join with the noble lord in inviting honourable members to look at all Bills with impartial eyes. The Government will do its best to meet the views of the new National Party. I am inclined to wish I could become a member of that party myself. I congratulate the noble lord on being its leader. If it were not for the Labour members--a most useful body--I should say that the old Fourth Party lived again." He paused. He sighed, "Ah me!" and then reclined again.

The House at once voted the Address. Members hurried to remove from the notice paper futile resolutions and blocking motions. A score of bills, prudently progressive, were at once formally introduced. Parties vied with each other in making constructive suggestions. Parliament was full of the spirit which made the Psalmist's mountains skip like rams. It went to work with a will.

In the midst of this whirl of fine happenings the fairies departed. They flew to the top of the Victoria Tower, and revelled; while Bim, unblessed with powers of flight, went peacefully to sleep in Geoffrey's breast-pocket.

CHAPTER XXI

OBERON AT LAST

So far as the conquest of London was concerned, all was over except the shouting. June was triumphant. There was no question about that. Victory clung to her as a golden shadow. More and more elves came from Fairyland, each one increasing the area for good, and becoming a present testimony to the truth of June's victory.

Oberon was silent; as yet he made no sign--he remained far away, hunting in the valleys of obstinacy; but no other in the shadow-lands of Faerie hesitated to acknowledge the glorious truth. June's madness--as they called it--was justified.

Spring came creeping up. Nature awoke; shook off her lethargy, and cried welcome to the future. The trees were cautiously putting on raiment. Birds found their forgotten voices, and began practising anthems, preparing for the nesting season. June, touched by the hope in the air, and strengthened with the satisfaction of seeing a recovered or recovering London, was modestly confident.

A human person, with such progress behind him, would have been cocksure; but the fairies know better!

She showed her strength and content by an act of courage. She sent the crown back to Fairyland; Bim, as a special mark of honour, was privileged to take it.

The gnome, through this great trust--so responsible, so ennobling--was rapt up to the seventeenth realm of happiness. The privilege filled him with a fine humility. He did not presume to wear the crown; he held it with reverence in his hands, and when riding his pelican homewards--June procured one for that mission from St. James's Park--carried it carefully under his arm.

He reached the Violet Valley, delivered the crown to its mystical guardians, and then, eager to give expression to his wonderful adventures, told to excited groups of immortals tales of the doings of June. His words came forth in torrents. He had so much to say. He developed unexpected powers of expression. He found himself, while detailing his epic, shining with the graces of minor poetry. Nymphs, gathering about him as he spoke, sweetened his narrative with chords struck on harps of gold and starshine. His tales were repeated by tellers a hundredfold. A fairy "Iliad" was in the making. Not a flower or frog in Elfland failed to receive a full, true, and particular account of what the fairy and gnome had experienced, and of their ultimate triumph.

The result was better than glorious. Bim was acting as a first-rate recruiting officer. In consequence of his eloquence, the flow of fairies townwards grew rapidly in volume. The more he talked, the faster they flew. His ardour and loquacity were stimulated still further by this increasing--and vanishing--evidence of his success. Encouraged, he went on talking--explaining, appealing. He stood on a stump, an orator. His persuasiveness and powers of speech were depopulating Fairyland. They harkened, ruminated, and fled.

Oberon, made aware of this, was roused at last to the seriousness of things, and came back to Elfland in a panic.

"I told you so!" said Titania, with that inconsequence and gentle insistency her lord so loved.

The king airily murmured a royal "Pooh!" and hid his thoughts in a mist.

Never before had the real Fairyland been so silent. Many of the glades were empty. The flowers drooped. Noxious insects took courage and prowled. The murmurs of chained dragons, subterraneously entombed, were heard in the stillness for the first time for centuries; but they were securely prisoned.

The fairy knights, their warders, strong in their high chivalry and duteous devotion, resisted all inclination to follow the wings of their fellows. They remained, abiding and true, at their arduous, difficult posts, guarding the fiery caverns. Mankind has no idea of the dangers that threatened them. If those living, prehistoric creatures had escaped--but, no!--no!--no more of that! Let the horrors remain in the ghastly depths, to be remembered only on those rare occasions when, with their mighty convolutions, they cause earthquake.

The fairies flew crowding into London and the other cities which they had forsaken; and did not come alone. Gnomes, thousandfold, also came riding in, mounted on all manner of birds--goldfinches and tits, robins and wrens, and others of the fine companionage of the feathered kingdom. The monopoly of King Sparrow was over. He was kept in his proper place, and became a decent and tolerant Bohemian.

Later in the summer season--when soft is the sun--bright-coloured butterflies fluttered carelessly out of the country into the radiant streets. Several birds went open-mouthed to greet them; but the fairy power was so potent that the lingering things of beauty--the living smiles of Psyche--were not touched.

Fire-flies were seen darting about the Royal Exchange. Swallows played over the waters of the Thames.

London became worthier still of its various newcomers. It cleaned and decked itself so rapidly that far-travelled sailormen, returning to the Pool after merely a month of absence, saw the great difference, and, knowing themselves deficient, earnestly signed the pledge.

Every pillar-box within an area of fifty square miles now had its fairy. Gnomes, overcrowding, had to get lodgment where they could. The favourite habitation of these democratic gentry was a discarded silk hat, of which there were many--for men had come to realize the ugliness and discomfort of the chimney monster, and had flung it out of fashion. Better ventilated, and with the nap rubbed the wrong way, they had become agreeable gnome-dwellings. There were long rows of them in Victoria Park, and they were generously dotted about Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Embankment Gardens.

The happiest chapter in the progress of June now began. It was nothing other than the open faith of man in the reality and truth of the fairies. Some of them, old people first, the youthful later, the children last, saw them; saw fairies flying along happy streets or proudly enthroned on the pillar-boxes, ruling with beneficence; saw gnomes dangling and balancing on the iron arms of lamp-posts, seated in rows on walls, sprawling among flower-pots on window-sills.

The discovery of this new vision had colossal results. It set the whole world writing paragraphs. The newspapers, avid for facts, boomed the revelation for all it was worth. German metaphysicians put on gold-rimmed spectacles and laboriously laid the foundations of voluminous tomes dedicated to the scientific analysis and philosophy of the new great influence which had come to advance mankind. It was the X rays and radium--advanced a long stage further.

Humanity generally woke up with a start to the better condition of things, and set itself even more vigorously than before to the remedying of wrongs and the removal of whatever rottenness had managed to survive.

Life became as an anthem with a jolly chorus. Croakers, and the pessimists whose idea of duty is to hinder and delay, were pleasantly pushed out of place, so that optimists, with vision and the will to do, might get to work.

Those months of spring--until the almond was in blossom, and the daisies began to bud--knew more eager preparation and the devising of true artistic plans for the betterment and adornment of London, its suburbs, and the other like places of England, than ever before.

What of poet and artist, lives somehow and somewhere, in every individual, became, in the sunshine of ideas then warm in the world, strong enough to emerge from its chrysalis state? Facts were examined in the light of informed ideas. Men went about with dreams in their eyes, and worked with practical hands.

The smoke fiend was promptly abolished--the means for doing this had long been waiting to be used; and at once London became brighter. A bottle of November fog was treasured in the British Museum. The blue skies, no longer veiled through the incense of black King Coal, shone so brightly on streets and buildings, lighting them up, that the lurking filth and dinginess despoiling worthy edifices became more than ever eyesores and an annoyance.

St. Paul's Cathedral was attacked with an army of brushes. Before Midsummer-day came, the great architectural crown of London emerged in white glory from its setting of roofs--they were flower-filled now--and soon would be pointing to the heavens, a burnished dome of bronze.

Trees were planted along the sides of every main thoroughfare. Silent motor-buses glided through green avenues. Statues not doomed by the order of ugliness were cleansed; and, where their subject allowed it, were adorned with flowers festooned about their pedestals.

Trafalgar Square was, at last, in process of becoming worthy of its position and opportunity. A new story, architecturally handsome, was superimposed on the National Gallery, removing the past insignificance. The Square itself became a joy in marble and roses. Whitehall sparkled with fountains. The rails of the Parks were removed.

The Thames grew silvern again. Men fished from boats alongside the Embankment, and listened to the choruses of concerts in the gardens which graced the fine thoroughfare. It was a favourite sight in future years to watch the salmon running down to sea, and, later, making their willing return to the upper reaches beyond Teddington.

Members of Parliament--there were petticoats amongst them--in the intervals of beneficent debate--threw food from the Terrace to fishes and seagulls.

Cockneys hoped for a hay-harvest on Clerkenwell Green.

And that is all we need say to show how splendidly the fairies were causing men to modify London.

Beauty was living; vulgarity was dying. Hopefulness, happiness, kindness reigned.

We must go back to an earlier stage of the triumph of June, when the happy developments, aforesaid, were generally but generating in men's minds, and had not come to actual processes of materialization.

It was April--the beginning of the last week of the joyous month; and though on all sides of her there was bustling evidence of her absolute victory, June felt sad, for Oberon had given no sign of his forgiveness. He and Titania were the only fairies who had not come to justify her happiness. Realizing this, she had almost enough sorrow for tears. Why did not the king come? Could his displeasure still be active?

As she flew here, there, and all about the radiant Metropolis--from over which the pall of evil had been finally removed--she sighed and sighed again. Her comrades, seeing the sadness, her burden, were grieved. It was the only dark speck on a condition of absolute joy.

June visited her human friends--Sally Wilkins, the Oldsteins, Archdeacon Pryde, the Mosses, the Duke and Duchess of Armingham, Lord Geoffrey Season, Sir Titus Dods--and rejoiced to find them still at work on the right lines, marching the way of fairy progress, but her yellow depression clung to her and would not be shaken off.

Strange that even in the hour of fulfilled joy she should be haunted by the spectre of disappointment; but so it was.

The last days of April drifted by. It was the evening of its thirtieth day. Soon after midnight, in the first of the morning darkness, the fairy of the year was to be crowned.

June hid herself in loneliness on her roof over Paradise Court, drooped her wings, and was, in every respect, weary. The hour of reaction, so long resisted, at last had come. She felt then that the successful fulfilment of her quest, while lifting a weight from her, had also taken away something that sustained and inspired her. With Bim far away--she knew not where--and her multitude of comrades dispersed in all parts of the Metropolis, or, she supposed, travelling to the new crowning, her burden of weakness and weariness was heavy indeed.

She looked up to the sky, and remembered the evening of a year ago. The stars were shining now as they shone then. The crescent moon looked down. Curious as ever, Diana, that prudish old maid, the Hellenic Mrs. Grundy, peeped through the silver cranny, and watched the world, waiting the crowning.

Memories of the last May-day came forcefully to June. She recollected Oberon's appeal to her; Titania's brief kindness of championship; her own defiance and flight. How changed things were since then! She longed to be back in the Land of Wild Roses, now that her task was fulfilled.

Though the stars were shining brightly, life and the sky seemed to her grey, and grey remained till the clocks struck eleven. Roused by their chorus from her depressing reverie, she flew to the highest chimney on her roof, to contemplate in farewell the wonders surrounding her.

Bim's garden was still flourishing. Its flowers shone proudly with fairy-light. They--aha!--were not faint-hearted. On many roofs spring-time petals were looking upward, an elf-flame breaking from every opening bud. Fairyland was effectually translated; London transformed.

Good-bye for a time! To-morrow she would leave all this--her particular task was done. She would, in the minutes before midnight, hasten to the new crowning, wherever it might be, to congratulate the happiest fairy, whoever that should be, and then, free, she would fly to the dear home ways, to rest, refresh, rejoice.

But would the gentle King forgive her? She remembered his command of a year ago, and felt sorrow, which the record of a completed purpose and victory won could not banish or diminish.

The question troubled her, till Oberon brought the answer.

She was seated brooding on the rim of the chimney, her deportment and limp wings signs of extreme dejection, when she was aware of brightness and happiness approaching. She looked hastily about her.

Sorrow went.

Myriads of fairies were on the wing, coming fleetly towards her, singing the songs that gladden the night of the crowning. Their brightness was such that for a time it paled the stars. Then slowly, still chanting, they ranged on the houses about her, or fluttered in laughing lines under the sky.

Gnomes, eager to join in what was happening, came up, climbing rain-pipes, and using other means of reaching the roof-country.

They reminded June of Bim. She wished he, too, was there. Why had not he returned? This procession and display meant honour and happiness which he deserved to share. But wherever he was, it was well with him; that she knew.

She gave the whole of her attention to the wonders approaching.

On all sides about her fairies were ranged; the houses were outlined with their radiance; every flower on window-sills and roof-gardens was awake and shining.

Slowly now, gladly, majestically, the high aristocracy of Elfdom came. They greeted June with the waving of wands, and then took places near where she was sitting.

There was a burst of applause in melody. Oberon and Titania were approaching. June's being trembled with rapture. They had come! They had come! She rose to greet them; a great glad cry of welcome--welcome from multitudinous elves rang up to the sky.

Their majesties of Fairyland came to Bim's garden, and there were enthroned, a brilliant escort of knights grouped behind them.

"June," said the King, so clearly that every elf could hear him, "a year has passed since your act of disobedience. Against our wishes, and despite our will, you went to fulfil the impossible. You came to where the cloud of evil--that ominous pall--hung over London, and proclaimed the weakness of Fairyland!"

These words sounded so like a rebuke that June was fearful. She bowed her head, opened wings, and knelt mutely before her monarch. Oberon smiled.

"You have done well, June! You have accomplished the impossible. You have taught us never to despair. For the first time in history a fairy has disobeyed a King's command and done right. Elves!" he cried to the company, "the hour of the crowning has nearly come. Who shall the honoured fairy be?"

There was a moment's silence. Then, as a chord of music, far-flung, unanimous, the answer came:

"June!"

Magnificent silence again.

The fortunate fairy, chosen, was still kneeling. Her great happiness humbled her. Her wings quivered. She was enduring an ordeal. Titania raised her, kissed her, brought to her confidence. Then, hand in hand, June linking the King and Queen, they flew westward. The host of fairies followed in a long line of golden light, cheerily singing. A comet would be a mere firework in comparison with their splendour.

As they made progress over the town, Oberon and Titania saw the fruits of June's efforts. The great Metropolis shone beautiful beneath them. There was no ugliness, want, or unkindness in London that night. Streets and houses were full of inspiring brightness and noble delight.

As they passed, half circling, St. Paul's Churchyard, a nightingale was singing.

A great army of gnomes hurried along the roads, following the way of the procession. They were not going to miss the crowning--no, not they! Policemen on duty were only half aware of the bustlement proceeding.

The crowning was to be celebrated in St. James's Park. A choir of birds were already singing the opening anthem as Oberon and Titania, still hand in hand with June, descended to thrones in the greenness.

CHAPTER XXII

CROWNED

Fairyland! Fairyland!

Again there was high revel in Fairyland--revel heartier, happier than ever before. No wilderness was now left unlighted by elf-kindness. Every brick and fragment of London town, as every grass-blade and flower in the green country, was under the acknowledged dominion of the fairy King. The elves had come to their own again.

Oberon and Titania, with June seated between them, watched the procession of infinite fairies arriving; saw the glorious presences range themselves round the place of the coronation, while the preparation of the Park's smooth sward for feasting and dancing went rapidly on. Gnomes bustled about pell-mell, as they had done that night of the year before, and soon made the wide, smooth lawn ready for melodies of motion and song.

The heroes of old time came marching amid cheering to their places of honour near the throne. They were shining with the pride wrought by arduous duties done.

The cousins of Rumpelstiltzkin, belonging to the brotherhood which in the far-away mountains of Knickerbocker had kidnapped happy-go-lucky Rip, came up from their deep-down workshops--hammers in their hands--to greet the fairy of the year. They stood or sat in groups, wagging their beards with crony's talk, while gravely nodding in time with the music. The hoarded gossip of months was then in circulation.

June was entranced by the wonders presented to her. It was all so happily old, and yet in every item and particle so freshly, entrancingly new.

Nymphs came from the dim Down-There--an underground Kingdom with roads, rivers and mountains, nearly as vast and wonderful as this over-world, is hidden in Fairyland (its stories may be told some day)--to flit on gossamer wings and feet of light over the grass. Their motion touched the winds with rapture, and gave to the night radiance and fragrance.

The daintiest and proudest of the immortals joined in the delight of the dancing. No happier evening in the long, long annals of Elfland has been or can be recorded. It was pre-eminently a brief series of hours of triumph, without a single regret or fear to spoil or mar the brightness and harmony.

Stars sent down their dearest beams laden with blessings for elfkind and humanity. A great planet crossed the sky, a dazzling miniature of the moon at its full.

June's only wonder during that period was--Bim! He could not be far away. Where was he? It was strange he should not be there.

Meanwhile the revel went on, with its laughter, songs and feasting.

The time for the crowning came. Oberon rose and raised his sceptre in command. A glad unanimous cry rang out. Birds atune to the rapture sang. A chosen choir of a thousand nightingales expressed delight.

The time of the fairy year! The crown, guarded by a score of sentinels, was reverently borne towards the King and Titania by a gnome--by Bim. He was by royal proclamation appointed, henceforth and for ever, to be its especial keeper; and so reaped the reward of his year of devotion and prowess. June rose with delight to greet him. She forgot all else of that festival then, in gladness at seeing him. For his part, in return he smiled a smile broad enough to be a generous grin--no mere plain prose words can express the fulness of his happiness.

June realized at once that he was changed, improved. He was less gnome now than fairy knight. The nymph of the pool in the Violet Valley had remembered the promise made on the early morning of his departure in the wake of June. Bim had received the reward she had predicted. He was, in that proud hour and for a while thereafter, unique in Fairyland; having the distinction of being raised to a class by himself: less gnome than knight: the rewarded hero; and no one was envious because of his good fortune.

The gnomes, especially, were proud of their fellow, who by earning honour for himself had thrown honour, reflected, on them.

The king took the crown from Bim, and held it above the happy fairy.

"June, June, June!" again and again that favourite name was raised.

The nightingales, unanimous, gave the guiding note, and the triumph song--the anthem of that supreme hour--rang once again up to the stars.

London in sleep heard the song and dreamed of the fairies.

Oberon placed the crown on June's head. Hand in hand with Bim, she and the comrade who had done so duteously walked slowly round the inside of the great circle of elves.

It was the hour of triumph. Victory, absolute and supreme, was expressed in the music of that night. Oberon ruled everywhere!

Fairyland! Fairyland!

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