Melior did not have long to wait. The murrain among the werewolves supplied the ideal pretext for disgracing Aquilon with impartiality. The werewolves were one of Brocéliande’s distinguishing glories; the murrain was a calamity: all deplored it and no one could suspect her of a personal spite. Nevertheless, at that evening’s Assembly, she opened the subject in the voice of a grieving mermaid, condoling with Aquilon, whose devotion had been frustrated by the negligence of an underling: Puck was to blame. Beliard saw what she was after, and made imploring eyes at his cousin—but in vain. Aquilon declared that Puck was an admirable servant. If any remnant of the pack were saved, it would be entirely Puck’s doing. And having made an eloquent eulogy of his whipper-in, he cut the ground from under Melior’s feet by resigning his Mastership before she could deprive him of it.

But from time to time an Elfin may be born who transcends the typical jolie-laide of the race by an absolute beauty. Such a one was Tiphaine, of the Kingdom of Elfhame, in Scotland, and so was the legendary Morgan le Fay. Nel, of the Kingdom of Pomace, in Herefordshire, was another of these shining exceptions. Her parents, respectable members of the lesser aristocracy, looked at each other with amazement, unable to account for her. They expected her to vanish like a rainbow. But she throve, and took herself easily, and accepted admiration with no more fluster or false demur than one of the thousand daisies on a lawn accepts the dew. In the same modest, matter-of-course spirit she accepted an admiring husband. It was a resplendent match. Hamlet was faultlessly well-bred, wealthy, intelligent, handsome, an orphan. In his youth, despite these advantages, he was looked at askance by the staider Elfins of Pomace, who, enjoying a sheltered climate and a traditional calm, did not like excesses. Ordinary libertinism they would not have objected to: Hamlet was a mental libertine. He founded the Pomacean Society for Unregulated Speculation, which, meeting at irregular intervals—in itself subversive—discussed such subjects as Sleeping Out-of-Doors, Compulsory Gymnastics for All Ages, the Badness of Good Taste. After lecturing on Mortals and Their Future, he put it to a vote: That Mortals Are More Interesting Than Elfins. When even his most committed disciples rejected this, he put another motion: That Elfins Are Not Interesting. After three hours of debate, the members of the Pomacean Society went home chanting the national anthem sciolto e fortissimo, and next day were officially required to consider themselves dissolved. Hamlet then founded the Pomacean Society for Promoting Dissolution, tired of it, dissolved it, and went to visit his Great-Aunt Angelica at La Recondita, her estate in the Apennines. Angelica was a lady of illustrious gallantries. She deplored Hamlet’s rusticity—blaming it on his upbringing in Pomace, a provincial Kingdom in a clownish country—and, having nothing else on hand at the moment, set herself to comb it out of him. For six months he wrote a Petrarchan sonnet daily, alternately amorous or pastoral, practised the manège on a winged horse—a rare animal, out of the Astolfine stable—and learned the scandals of every Elfin family of distinction. After the one hundred and twenty-third sonnet she thought him adequately combed, gave him letters of introduction, and sent him off to make the Grand Tour.