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before that it is not polite to say you don’t want anything, or that you don’t like it,” said the nurse. “We are waiting for your Royal Highness.”

So the Princess got up and went to the dinner-table, and Taboret watched them all the time. When she saw how pale little Ursula was, and how little she ate, and that there was no talking or laughing allowed, she sighed and frowned even more than before, and then she flew back to her fairy home, where she sat for some hours in deep thought.

At last she rose, and.went out to pay a visit to the largest shop in Fairyland.

It was a queer sort of shop. It was neither a grocer’s, nor a draper’s, nor a hatter’s. Yet it contained sugar, and dresses, and hats. But the sugar was magic sugar, which transformed any liquid into which it was put; the dresses each had some special charm, and the hats were wishing-caps. It was, in fact, a shop where every sort of spell or charm was sold.

Into this shop Taboret flew; and as she was well known there as a good customer, the master of the shop came forward to meet her at once,