There are some lovely colours in the first bit of this chapter. Perhaps you could get someone to make a colour-sketch? And pearls _have_ a "mild splendour," haven't they, quite different from diamonds or rubies? If you are a girl wouldn't you like to have a hair-ribbon like Bee's? George and Bee were taught a beautiful lesson that morning, and learnt it, too. I wish we could all describe beautiful scenery as beautifully as the Duchess could--and, by-the-way, look carefully at the iris flower when you meet with one again. Sylphs? Have you another name for them? What a sounding title the old beggar-woman gave herself, and what a well furnished kitchen she had! Have you a pipkin and a caldron at home? What are the duties of Dwarfs?
Have you ever noticed that hills and woods are really "blue in the distance"? A great many writers have done so. What a charming definition (horrid word) Princess Bee gave of the horizon, and how differently she thought of the bigness of the world from George. Do you think they would find lobsters by fishing under the old stone bridge? (Perhaps, however, this is too severe a question for a tale about "long, long ago.") Those forbidden Sylphs were still in the children's minds, but Bee had less fear than George--or was she daring George to go? Which of the two children was the best quarreller?
And _now_, who is the brave adventurer? There is a pretty picture of which the "Headless Woman" is the centre. Read the description again and again and look at the picture with closed eyes. There is another with Bee in the centre, holding out her skirt for the cherries. Bee's teachers had not taught her economics, had they? It would be hard to find a more charming description of a walk than is contained in this chapter. Bee is soon plunged in despair, but George is a little Greatheart and soon has his reward. Read slowly and more than once the description of the lake. The sudden appearance of the goose-girl gives us another pretty picture. What is a demijohn? How does Bee tell us that the day is waning? Consider the words "Reeds, like pliant swords," and the pretty coloured flower-picture at the end of the chapter.
George still plays the part of Greatheart manfully and is ready for any event, having used his observing powers on the fruits and berries like a Boy Scout. Think of that sharp picture against the pale sky of evening--"a little dwarf riding on a crow." Then of the changing picture--like a lovely scene in a play--as night falls upon the lake. See how the Sylphs come while the boy stands entranced. Did he remember the words of Bee's mother as he was carried "through the waters, in halls of crystal and porphyry"? And what a lovely word the last one is!