8 PRINCE PRIGIO.

‘kisses. And so the fairies were not invited!
It was an extraordinary thing, but none of the
‘nobles could come to the christening party
when they learned that the fairies had not been
asked. Some were abroad; several were ill; a
few: were in prison among the Saracens; others
were captives in the dens of ogres. The end of
it was that the king and queen had to sit down
alone, one at each end of a very long table,
arrayed with plates and glasses for a hundred
guests —for a hundred guests who never
came!

“Any soup, my dear?” shouted the king,
through a speaking-trumpet ; when, suddenly,
the air was filled with a sound like the rustling
of the wings of birds.

Flitter, flitter, flutter, went the noise; and
when the queen looked up, lo and behold! on
every seat was a lovely fairy, dressed in green,
each with a most interesting-looking parcel in her
hand. Don’t you like opening parcels? The
king did, and he was most friendly and polite
to the fairies. But the queen, though she saw
them distinctly, took no notice of them. “You
see, she did not believe in fairies, nor in her
own eyes, when she saw them. So she talked
across the fairies to the king, just as if they
had not been there; but the king behaved as
politely as if they were Cece of course,
they were.

When dinner was over, and when the nurse