United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Do you know what I should really like, only of course it's not possible; to be godmother to his first child." "Oh, Lily!" "I should. Don't you hear me say that I know it's not possible? I'm not going up to London to ask her. She'll have all manner of grandees for her godfathers and godmothers. I wonder what those grand people are really like." "I don't think there's any difference.
So nothing was explained, and nobody presumed to ask any questions about her, for ought not a prince be able to marry whomsoever he pleases? Nor whether or not the day of fairies was over did the princess ever see anything further of her seven godmothers.
She and Antoine had often talked of that summer morning when he had found her there among the leaves, and Bébée and he had laughed over it gayly, and she had been quite proud in her innocent fashion that she had had a fairy and the flowers for her mother and godmothers, which Antoine always told her was the case beyond any manner of doubt.
"You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep? Would you let an old faery doctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you would wake up to find happiness and health and love and all the other gifts the godmothers brought?" She tried her best to keep the frightened look out of her eyes. By the way he watched her, however, she knew some of it must have crept in.
For the moment there flashed across my brain the shadows of all the Christmas stories I had ever read or heard concerning vestries; the phantom bridal, in which the bride's beautiful white hand changed to the bony fingers of a skeleton as she signed the register; the unearthly christening, in which all at once, after the ceremony having been conducted with the utmost respectability, to the edification of the unauthorised intruder hiding behind a pillar, the godfathers and godmothers, nurse and baby, priest and clerk, became in a moment dilapidated corpses; whereon the appalled intruder fell prone at the foot of his pillar, there to be discovered the next morning by his friends, and the public generally, with his hair blanched to an awful whiteness, or his noble intellect degraded to idiocy.
It seems little to say, but if we stop to think of it, this power to read men aright and see the truth in them and about them is a power more precious than any other bestowed by the kindest of fairy godmothers. The lame devil of Le Sage looked into the secrets of life through the roofs of houses, and much did he find of the secret story of humanity.
When at last the queen gave birth to a daughter the king was so overjoyed that he gave a great christening feast, the like of which had never before been known. He asked all the fairies in the land there were seven all told to stand godmothers to the little princess, hoping that each might give her a gift, and so she should have all imaginable perfections.
One man informed us with pride that when he left his native village he was "decked like an altar of the Blessed Virgin on the first of May." In other words, covered with flowers. There are but few lonely soldiers now, since those who have no families to write to them receive letters and parcels from the Godmothers who have adopted them.
Sometimes we find them on friendly terms with the villagers, acting as godfathers and godmothers to the children, summoning the peasants to take part in the chase, or to dance in the courtyard of the castle. We find them endowing hospitals, giving alms, keeping an eye on the conduct of the village priest. A continual interchange of presents goes on between the cottage and the great house.
"You'll lose your head, man," answered Slatin. "Don't be a fool." "I'm keepin' to what me godfathers and godmothers swore for me," answered Macnamara stubbornly. "You must pretend for a while, or you'll be dead in an hour and myself too." "You that's a different nose on me face," answered Macnamara. "But suppose I buck when I get into the mosque no, begobs, I'll not be doin' it!"