Did anybody ever see a fairy in the city?  Was a glimpse ever caught of Fairyland there?  I say No.  But I was in the country this summer where a great number of mushrooms grew, and one day when I was walking in a grassy lane I met a little, old queen, who was fanning herself with the leaf of the poor-man’s-weather-glass; she had taken off her crown, and it was lying on the top of a lovely red mushroom.  I poked the mushroom with my parasol, and instantly felt on my face a faint puff of air, and heard a hum no louder than the buzz of an angry fly.

I sat down on the grass, and then my eyes fell on the queen.

“You have let my crown fall in the dirt,” she said, tossing a wisp of hair from her forehead; “but you great, insensible beings are always in mischief when you are in the country.  Why don’t you stay at home, in your brick cages that stand on heaps of flat stones?  You are watched there all the time by creatures with clubs in their leather belts, so you cannot tear and crush things to pieces as you do here.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, madam,” I answered; “if you knew how unhappy I felt this morning when I started on my last walk, you would pity me.  I must go home at once, and my home is in the city—­shut in by houses before and behind it.  If I look out of the window, I only see a strip of sky above me, where neither sun nor moon passes on its journey round the world; and below me, only the stone pavement over which goes an endless procession of men and women, upon a hundred errands I never guess at.”

The queen tapped her head with a white stick like a peeled twig, and made such a noise that I examined it, and saw an ivory knob, which reminded me of the budding horns of a young deer.  As if in answer to my thought, she said: 

“It drops off every year.  In the fairy-nature all elements are united.  We partake of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and add our own; this makes us what we are.  We do not suffer, but we experience, without suffering, of course; our long lives glide along like dreams.  As you are in sleep, so are we awake.  If you love the country, which contains our kingdom, as the filbert-shell contains the kernel, I will endow you with power.  I will give you something to take back with you.”

What do you think she gave me?  A little closet with shelves; on each shelf were laid away all my remembrances of the summer, for me to unfold at leisure.  When she gave me the key, which looked exactly like a steel pen, she said:  “When you turn the key you will understand my power.  All things will be alive, will know as much, and talk as fast as you do.  The closet, in short, is but a wee corner of my kingdom, where to-day and to-morrow are the same—­past and present one.  A maid-of-honor wishes to go to town.  I’ll send her in the closet.  My slave, the geometrical spider, must spin her a warm cobweb—­and when you open the closet, be sure and not disturb my little Fancie.”