She looked down at the cushion on which she was sitting, then she looked up at me and smiled.

“I don’t like to leave it,” she said; “it’s so pretty.”  And she stroked the soft gold stuff with her tiny hand.

“Yes,” I said; “and your lovely frock goes with it so beautifully.  But how would this be?”

I stooped, gently lifted the cushion with its delicate burden and put it down on the floor in front of the fire.  “There—­how is that?”

“That’s delightful,” said the Fairy Queen.  “I’m so glad you like my frock,” she went on.  “Paris, of course.  That is to say, the idea came from there.  My own people did the actual making.  After all, no one can touch the French when it comes to real chic.  Don’t you think so?”

I acquiesced.  Oh, yes, Paris was certainly the best.

“But I didn’t come here to discuss clothes,” said my visitor.  She made a quick movement and leaned suddenly forward on the cushion, her delicate golden head supported on her slender hand.  “Do you know the Editor of Punch?” she asked abruptly.

I hesitated.  “I can’t exactly say that I know him,” I said.

The Fairy Queen looked very disappointed.

“Oh, dear, then I’m afraid it’s no good.  I thought you’d be sure to know him.”

“But although I don’t know him personally I am in communication with him,” I said.  “Perhaps—­”

She brightened up a little.

“I suppose you could write,” she said; “though of course it would be far better to see him.”

“It’s about that cover,” she went on.  I looked at her blankly.

“The cover of Punch, you know.”

Vague pictures of Mr. Punch surrounded by little dancing figures, an easel, Toby, a lion—­surely there was a lion somewhere—­flitted across my mind.  What on earth had the cover of Punch got to do with the Fairy Queen?

I went over to the little table where lay the latest copy, and came back with it in my hand and knelt down on the floor near the cushion.

The Fairy Queen came close to me and peered over the edge of the paper.

“Look at the fairies,” she said, pointing with a tiny indignant finger. “Look at them.  They’re most dreadfully old-fashioned.  Nobody in fairyland looks in the least like that now.”

I looked.  Certainly the little figures had rather an early-Victorian air about them.

“Of course we should never dream of being tremendously fashionable or anything of that kind.  I would not for one moment think of allowing any of my court-ladies to cut their hair short, for instance, or to wear one of those foolish hobble skirts; but nobody, nobody could accuse us of being dowdy.  Now tell me, have you ever seen one of us looking like that, or like that?”

“But are you quite sure,” I said, not without hesitation, for she was by way of being rather an autocratic and imperious little person and I was the least little bit afraid of her—­“are you quite sure that they are fairies?”