Mixed FairyTales And Stories

Melisande

o have a christening party, but the King put his foot down and said he would not have it.

"I've seen too much trouble come of christening parties," said he. "How ever carefully you keep your visiting-book, some fairy or other is sure to get left out, and you know what that leads to. Why, even in my own family, the most shocking things have occurred. The Fairy Malevola was not asked to my great grandmothers christening-and you know all about the spindle and the hundred years' sleep."

"Perhaps you're right," said the Queen. "My own cousin by marriage forgot some stuffy old fairy or other when she was sending out the cards for her daughter's christening, and the old wretch turned up at the last moment, and the girl drops toads out of her mouth to this day."

"Just so. And then there was that business of the mouse and the kitchen- maids," said the King; "we'll have no nonsense about it. I'll be her godfather, and you shall be her godmother; and we won't ask a single fairy; then none of them can be offended."

"Unless they all are," said the Queen.

And that was exactly what happened. When the King and the Queen and the baby got back from the christening the parlourmaid met them at the door, and said-

"Please, your Majesty, several ladies have called. I told them you were not at home, but they all said they'd wait."

"Are they in the parlour?" asked the Queen.

"I've shown them into the Throne Room, your Majesty," said the parlourmaid. "You see, there are several of them."

There were about seven hundred. The great Throne Room was crammed with fairies, of all ages and of all degrees of beauty and ugliness good fairies and bad fairies, flower fairies and moon fairies, fairies like spiders and fairies like butterflies-and as the Queen opened the door and began to say how sorry she was to have kept them waiting, they all cried, with one voice, "Why didn't you ask me to your christening party?"

"I haven't had a party," said the Queen, and she turned to the King and whispered, "1 told you so." This was her only consolation.

"You've had a christening," said the fairies, all together.

"I'm very sorry," said the poor Queen, but Malevola pushed forward and said, "Hold your tongue," most rudely.

Malevola is the oldest, as well as the most wicked, of the fairies. She is deservedly unpopular, and has been left out of more christening parties than all the rest of the fairies put together.

"Don't begin to make excuses," she said, shaking her finger at the Queen. "That only makes your conduct worse. You know well enough what happens if a fairy is left out of a christening party. We are all going to give our christening presents now. As the fairy of highest social position, I shall begin. The Princess shall be bald."

The Queen nearly fainted as Malevola drew back, and another fairy in a smart bonnet with snakes in it, stepped forward with a rustle of bats' wings. But the King stepped forward too.

"No you don't!" said he. "I wonder at you, ladies, I do indeed. How can you be so unfairylike? Have none of you been to school-have none of you studied the history of your own race? Surely you don't need a poor, ignorant King like me to tell you that this is no go?"

"How dare you?" cried the fairy in the bonnet, and the snakes in it quivered as she tossed her head. "It is my turn, and I say the Princess shall be-"

The King actually put his hand over her mouth.

"Look here," he said; "I won't have it. Listen to reason-or you'll be sorry afterwards. A fairy who breaks the traditions of fairy history goes out-you know she does-like the flame of a candle. And all tradition shows that only one bad fairy is ever forgotten at a christening party and the good ones are always invited; so either this is not a christening party, or else you were all invited except one, and, by her own showing, that was Malevola. It nearly always is. Do I make myself clear?"