began, "and we _quite_ understand your
feelings about our son's engagement. In fact we _share_ them." This
provoked a renewal of the uproar and a vehement desire to know why, if
that were so, the union had ever been contracted.

"If you'll only listen, I'll tell you," said the Queen. "We shouldn't
have consented to it at all but for the sake of our beloved people." At
this the beloved people very nearly had the gates down. "You don't
understand," she shouted. "Even now, if you insist on the marriage being
broken off, we are quite willing--indeed we shall be only too happy--to
put a stop to it."

Here there were shouts of "We do! We do insist! Stop it! No marriage!"

"Very well then," said Queen Selina with more assurance, "only I am
bound to tell you what the consequences will be. The Crystal Lake will
overflow till the whole of Maerchenland is under water. At least that's
what the Lake King threatens. _You_ know best whether he can do it or
not."

Her hearers knew too well, and the cries and murmurs took an altered
tone at once, though some voices cursed the Prince whose weakness and
folly had brought them to such a dilemma.

"Weakness and folly!" cried the Queen indignantly. "How can you be so
wretchedly ungrateful? When my poor, noble, unselfish boy is
sacrificing himself--for you don't suppose he can have any affection for
a Water-nixie?--sacrificing himself on--on the altar of his country!"

"Mater!" whispered Clarence in admiration, "you're the limit!"

"And all the reward he gets," the Queen went on, pressing her advantage,
"all the reward _we_ get--for providing that you can sleep safe and warm
in your beds--instead of being drowned in them--is violence and rude
remarks! Really, if you have any consciences left you ought to be
thoroughly ashamed of yourselves!"

They undoubtedly were. For a moment or two there was a hush, and then
the whole mob broke into tumultuous cheers--for the Queen, the King, and
more particularly the Crown Prince. Never since their accession had the
Royal Family been so popular.

"There now," said the Queen, when she and her family were weary of
bowing their acknowledgments, "that will do. Now go quietly away, like
respectable loyal persons, and tell all the other citizens what we're
doing for them."

"I must say, my love," observed the King, after the crowd had melted
away in a vastly different mood from that in which they had come, "you
showed wonderful presence of mind. I q