# When I Was a Little Girl/Chapter 7

VII
THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA
That night I could not go to sleep with the knowledge. If only I, as I am now, might have sat on the edge of the bed and told a story to me as I was then! I am always wishing that we two might have known each other—I as I am now and I as I was then. We should have been so much more interested in each other than anybody else could ever be. I can picture us looking curiously at each other through the dark, and each would have wished to be the other—how hard we would have wished that. But neither of us would have got it, as sometimes happens with wishes.
Looking back on that night, and knowing how much I wanted to be like the rest, I think this would be the story that I, as I am now, would have told that Little Me.
Once upon a time to the fairy king and queen ​there was born a little daughter. And the king, being a modern fairy, determined to invite to the christening of his daughter twelve mortals —a thing never before countenanced in fairy ceremony. And of course all unreal people are always very particular about their ceremonies being just so.
It was a delicate and difficult task to make out that mortal invitation list, for it was very hard to find in the world twelve human beings who, at a fairy party, would exactly fit in. After long thought and consultation with all his ministers and councillors, the king made out the following list:—
A child; a poet; a scientist; a carpenter; a prophet; an artist; an artisan; a gardener; a philosopher; a woman who was also a mother; a man who was also a father; and a day labourer.
“Do you think that will do at all?” the fairy king asked the fairy queen, tossing over the list.
“Well, dear,” she replied, “it’s probably the best you can do. You know what people are.” She hesitated a mere breath a fairy’s breath—and added: “I do wonder a little, though, just why the day labourer.”
​"My dear," said the king, "some day you will understand that, and many other things as well."
The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapes- tries as splendid as vistas curtaining the dis- tance. And the music was like the music of All-night, all done at once.
To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as something else- for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings prettily painted. One rep- resented a Rose, and she could hardly be dis- tinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light, whom nobody could rec​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/141 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/142 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/143 ​while she wore it; a gazing crystal which would enable the princess to see one hundred times as much as anybody else saw; certain sea secrets and sea spells; a lyre which played itself; a flask containing a draught which should keep the princess young; a vial of colours which hardly anyone ever sees; flowers and grasses and leaves which could be used almost like a dictionary to spell out other things; an assortment of wonderful happy fancies of every variety; a new rainbow; a box of picture cards of the world, every one of which should come true if one only went far enough; and a tapestry of the universe, wrapped around a brand-new idea in a box.
When these things had been graciously ac- cepted by the king, there was a stir in the com- pany, and sweeping into its midst came another Human Being, one who thought that she had every right to be invited to the christening, but who had not been invited. All the fairies shrank back, for it was an extraordinary-looking Human Being. She was tall and lithe and wore a sparkling gown, and her face had the look of many cities, and now it was like the painted cover of an empty box, and all the time it had the meaning only of those who never look ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/145 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/146 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/147 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/148
Little by little she grew silent and refused to join in the games.
​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/151 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/152 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/153 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/154 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/155 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/156 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/157 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/158 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/159 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/160 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/161 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/162 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/163 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/164 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/165 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/166 ​Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/167 ​Invisibly, as the hours leave a dial, the fairies drifted from the little room and back to the fairy ring among the old oaks to dance for very joyousness. The labourer and his family, hearing them go, were conscious of a faint lifting of the dark, as if morning were coming, bringing a new day. And to the Princess Romancia, beside Prince Hesperus, the world itself was a new world, where she did not walk alone as she had thought, but where all folk who will have it so walk together.