during all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night

I am in doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings

and rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth.



But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves

and amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright

and fine. Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL,

and the next that quite a number of people still smaller were standing

all about him. For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised

nor frightened, but sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep

out of his eyes. And there all about him stood the smiling elves

who had caught him sleeping under their privileges and had brought

him into Fairyland.



What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague

and imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor

detail does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something

very light and beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves,

nor the petals of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked,

and down the glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted

by a star, came at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage

of his memory and tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in

filmy green, and about her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her

hair waved back from her forehead on either side; there were curls not

too wayward and yet astray, and on her brow was a little tiara,

set with a single star. Her sleeves were some sort of open sleeves

that gave little glimpses of her arms; her throat, I think, was

a little displayed, because he speaks of the beauty of her neck

and chin. There was a necklace of coral about her white throat,

and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the soft lines

of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And her eyes,

I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and sweet

under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly

this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain

things he tried to express and could not express; "the way she moved,"

he said several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness

radiated from this Lady.



And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest

and chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale

set out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed

him gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand

in both of hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago

young Skelmersdale may have been a very comely youth. And once

she took his arm, and once, I think, she led him by the hand adown

the glade that the glow-worms lit.



Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from

Mr. Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives

little unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places



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