Then she went to the bedside of her little son, and she kissed him and fondled him, but she did not wake him.
“Ah, little son,” she said, “if I had not come home tonight, tomorrow you would have had a cruel stepmother in my place, but now you will never have any stepmother, and your father will always love you well.”
Then last of all she went to the bedside of her husband the King, and laid her letter on the pillow, close by his head.
“Alas! dear husband,” she said, “tonight I am looking at you, and you do not see me, but tomorrow morning you will be looking at me, when I shall not see you.”
Then she kissed him softly thrice, and bid him adieu, and went out of the palace to her dear rose-tree in the garden. It was nothing now but a bare black stump. So Queen Blanchelys lay down on the ground, and put her arms round the trunk, and from the dead branch she tore a long smooth thorn, and pierced her heart with it, and the drops of blood trickled to the roots of the tree, and at once the serpent at the roots shrivelled and died, and the tree again began to bud and sprout.
When the King woke in the morning the first thing he saw was the Queen’s letter, and he took it and read it at once, and as he read his cheeks turned pale, and he sighed bitterly, and then he called his courtiers, and told them what had happened, and they all went out into the garden to the rose-tree, under which lay poor Queen Blanchelys dead. But the tree which before was only a piece of dead wood was covered with green leaves and rosebuds.
The King kissed the Queen’s pale face, and ordered that there should be a grand funeral, and that she should be buried under her rose-tree, and from that day forth the King thought of no one but Queen Blanchelys, and each day sat by her grave under her rose-tree; but Zaire was stripped of all her fine dresses and jewels, and had the clothes which she wore before she came to the palace, and was banished from the land, and had to beg her bread from door to door.
But when the rose-tree burst into bloom, the roses, which were white before, were as red as the blood which sprang from the Queen’s heart, and which had coloured them.
“Now I call that an uncomfortable story,” said the Brooch, in rather a husky voice. “For my part, I like stories that end up all right.”
The Pin did not speak, for it was crying quietly, and was dreadfully ashamed of its tears being seen. Even the Bracelets had stopped chattering, and come down to listen. The Shawl-pin smiled. He felt his story had been a success, so he did not mind what the Brooch said.
“Now it is your turn,” said the Brooch to the Pin, who, after thinking a little, said he would tell them a story once told him by an Opal Ring he knew, when he asked how it came by its wonderful colours.
The Story of the Opal
The Sun was shining brightly one hot summer day, and a little Sunbeam slid down his long golden ladder, and crept unperceived under the leaves of a large tree. All the Sunbeams are in reality tiny Sun-fairies, run down to earth on golden ladders, which look to mortals like rays of the Sun. When they see a cloud coming they climb their ladders in an instant, and draw them up after them into the Sun. The Sun is ruled by a mighty fairy, who every morning tells his tiny servants, the beams, where they are to shine, and every evening counts them on their return, to see he has the right number. It is not known, but the Sun and Moon are enemies, and that is why they never shine at the same time. The fairy of the Moon is a woman, and all her beams are tiny women, who come down on the loveliest little ladders, like threads of silver. No one knows why the Sun and Moon quarrelled. Once they were very good friends. Some say it is because the Sun wished to marry her, and she did not like him, but preferred a sea king, for whose sake she always keeps near the world. Others think it is because of a piece of land which the Moon claimed as her own, and on which the Sun one day shone so strongly that he dried up and killed all the plants and grass there, which offended the Moon very much. Anyhow, it remains that they are bitter enemies, and the Sunbeams and Moonbeams may not play together.
On the day on which my story begins, the Sunbeam about whom I am going to tell you crept into a tree, and sat down near a Bullfinch’s nest, and watched the Bullfinch and its mate.
“Why should I not have a mate also?” he said to himself; and then he began to feel very sad, for the Sunbeams never mate. Yet he was the prettiest little fellow you could imagine. His hair was bright gold, and he sat still, leaning one arm on his tiny ladder, and listening to the chatter of the birds.
“But I shall try to keep awake tonight to see her,” said a young Bullfinch.
“Nonsense!” said its mother. “You shall do no such thing.”
“But the
