CHAPTER I.
{Chapter heading picture: p1.jpg} _How the Fairies were not Invited to Court_.
Once upon a time there reigned in Pantouflia a king and a queen.

With almost everything else to make them happy, they wanted one thing: they had no children.

This vexed the king even more than the queen, who was very clever and learned, and who had hated dolls when she was a child.
However, she, too in spite of all the books she read and all the pictures she painted, would have been glad enough to be the mother of a little prince.

The king was anxious to consult the fairies, but the queen would not hear of such a thing.

She did not believe in fairies: she said that they had never existed; and that she maintained, though _The History of the Royal Family_ was full of chapters about nothing else.
Well, at long and at last they had a little boy, who was generally regarded as the finest baby that had ever been seen.