the car had begun to glide along the road. Mr. Treuherz was seated in front, probably at the steering-wheel, though none was visible. The heralds sat in the rear, and the car was of such a size that there was abundant room for the family in the centre. Some yards ahead they heard a curious dry rustle and clatter, and could distinguish a confused grey mass of forms that seemed to be clearing the way for them, though whether they were human beings it was not possible to tell till they passed a lighted street-lamp.
"Why, goodness gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "they look like – like ostriches!"
She was mistaken here, because they were merely storks, but, before she could identify them more correctly, they all suddenly rose in the air with a whirr like that of a hundred spinning looms – and the car rose with them.
"Stop!" screamed Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "Sidney, tell Mr. Troitz to stop! I insist on knowing where we are being taken to!"
Treuherz glanced over his shoulder. "Where should I conduct your Majesties," he said, "but to your own Kingdom of Märchenland?"
Mrs. Stimpson and her husband would no doubt have protested, demanded explanations, insisted upon being put down at once, had they been able; but, whether it was that the car had some peculiarly soporific tendency, or whether it was merely the sudden swift rush through the upper air, a torpor had already fallen on the whole Stimpson family. It was even questionable if they remained long enough awake to hear their destination.
Daphne, for some reason, did not fall asleep till later. She lay back in her luxuriously cushioned seat, watching the birds as they flew, spread out in a wide fan against the dusky blue evening sky. Gablehurst, with its scattered lights, artistic villa-residences, and prosaic railway station – its valley and common and wooded hills, were far below and soon left behind at an ever increasing distance. But she did not feel in the least afraid. It was odd, but, after the first surprise, she had lost all sense of strangeness in a situation so foreign to all her previous experience.
"So we're being taken to Märchenland," she was thinking. "That's the same as Fairyland, practically. At least it's where all the things they call Fairy stories really happened, and —why I can't imagine – but Mr. and Mrs. Stimpson have been chosen King and Queen! And the poor dear things have no idea of it yet! Oh, I wonder" (and here, no doubt, the little creases came into her cheeks again, for she laughed softly to herself), "I wonder what they'll say or do when they find out!" And while Daphne was still wondering, her eyelids closed gently, and she, too, was sleeping soundly.
CHAPTER III
FINE FEATHERS
Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson was the first of her party to recover consciousness. When she did, she was greatly surprised to find that it was broad daylight, and that she was lying on a grassy slope, behind which was a forest of huge pines. Close beside her were the recumbent forms of her husband and family, which led her to the natural conclusion that the car must have met with an accident.
"Sidney!" she cried, shaking him by the shoulder. "Speak to me! You're – you're not seriously hurt, are you?"
"Eh, what?" he replied sleepily, and evidently imagining that he was comfortably in bed at home; "all right, my dear, all right! I'll get up and bring in the tea-tray presently. Lots of time… Why, hullo!" he exclaimed, after being shaken once more, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. "How do we all come to be here?"
The others were awake by this time. "And now we're here," put in Clarence, "where are we, eh, Mater?"
"It is no use asking me, Clarence. I know no more than you do. The last thing I remember was our all getting into the car to go and see the Pageant Committee. I've a vague recollection of ostriches – but no, I must have been dreaming them. However, the car seems to have upset somehow, only I don't see it about anywhere."
"No," said Mr. Stimpson, "or old Thingumagig, or those fellows with the trumpets either."
"Dumped us down here, and gone off with the car," said Clarence. "Looks as if we'd been the victims of a practical joke, what?"
"They would never dare to do that!" said his Mother. "I expect they have missed their way in the dark. Very careless of them. I don't know what Lady Harriet and the Committee will think of me. They'll probably ask somebody else to take the part of Queen before we can get there – for I'm sure we must be a good hundred miles away from Gablehurst!"
"The Baron said that he was taking us to Märchenland, Mrs. Stimpson," said Daphne; "and I'm almost sure that that is where we really are."
"And where may Märchenland be?" inquired Mrs. Stimpson sharply. "I never heard of it myself."
"Well," said Daphne, "it's another name for – for Fairyland, you know."
"Fairyland indeed!" replied Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson with some irritation. "You will find it difficult to persuade me to believe that I am in Fairyland, Miss Heritage! To begin with, there is no such place, and if there was, perhaps you will kindly tell me how we could possibly have got to it?"
"Through the air," explained Daphne patiently. "That car was drawn by storks, you see – not ostriches."
"When you have quite woke up, Miss Heritage," said Mrs. Stimpson, "you will realise what nonsense you are talking."
"Whatever this place is," said Clarence, "it don't look English, somehow, to me. I mean to say – that town over there – what?" He pointed across the wide plain to a cluster of towers, spires, gables, and pinnacles which glittered and gleamed faintly through the shimmering morning haze.
"It certainly has rather a Continental appearance," observed his father.
"If it has," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "it is only some buildings or scenery or something they have run up for the Pageant. So we haven't been taken in the wrong direction after all."
"I believe, Mummy," chirped Ruby, "Miss Heritage is right, and this is Fairyland."
"Don't be so ridiculous, child! You'll believe next that we came here in a car drawn by flying storks, I suppose!"
"D'you know, Mater," said Clarence, "I'm not so sure we mayn't have. What I mean is – there's some sort of flying machine coming along now. I grant you it isn't drawn by storks, but they're birds anyhow, and there seems to be some one in the car too."
"Nothing of the kind!" declared Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson obstinately. "At least one may fancy one sees anything with the sun in our eyes as it is. Well, upon my word!" she added, still incredulously, as an iridescent shell-shaped chariot attached to a team of snow-white doves volplaned down from a dizzy height to a spot only a few yards away, "I really could not have – who, and what can this old person be?"
The occupant of the chariot had already got out of it, and was slowly coming towards them, supporting herself on a black crutch-handled staff. As she drew nearer they could see that she was a woman of great age. She wore a large ruff, a laced stomacher, wide quilted petticoats, and a pointed hat with a broad brim. Her expression was severe, but not unkindly, while she evidently considered herself a personage of some importance.
"She looks exactly like the Fairy Godmother in the pictures," whispered Ruby.
"Whoever she may be," said her Mother, scrambling to her feet with more haste than dignity, "I suppose I shall have to go and speak to her, as I presume I am the person she has come to meet."
However, it was Daphne who was addressed by the new-comer.
"The Court Chamberlain, Baron Treuherz von Eisenbänden, has brought me the glad tidings of your arrival, my child," she said in a high cracked voice, "and, as the high official Court Godmother to the Royal Family, I felt that I should be the first to bid you welcome."
This was more than Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson could be expected to stand without a protest.
"Pardon me," she said, throwing back her cloak as though she were in need of air, "pardon me, Madam, but I think you are mistaking my daughter's governess for me. I am Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson!"
The old lady turned sharply, and as her eyes fell