nd family.

"I've been talking it over with her Majesty, Sidney," she announced,
"and she has _quite_ brought me to see that, under the circumstances, we
shall really be more comfortable in dear old England. So she has kindly
arranged for us to be taken home in the car directly it gets back from
Clairdelune."

"Glad to hear it, my love," said the ex-Monarch. "Personally, I much
prefer 'Inglegarth' to this sort of thing."

"But I say," Clarence put in, glancing down at his fantastic attire, "I
don't quite see myself going back to Gablehurst in _this_ get up. Wish
I knew what had become of the kit we came in!"

It was now the hour when the Court was accustomed to go up and change
their costumes before dinner, and Daphne felt a difficulty as to the
proper course to pursue with the Wibberley-Stimpsons. Could she without
indelicacy invite them to sit as guests at what had lately been their
own table? And yet it seemed hardly human to leave them out. She decided
that the former course was on the whole less open to objection.

"I hope," she said to Mrs. Stimpson, with a touch of shyness, "that you
will all give me the pleasure of dining with us this evening? You see,
you must have something to eat before such a long journey."

"Your Majesty is most kind," said Mrs. Stimpson in a great flurry, "but,
if you will excuse us from accepting what--no one knows better than
I--is really a command, I--I really _don't_ think we should have time to
sit through a long dinner. We--we might miss the car--and besides,
there's the question of dressing. If we could have a few sandwiches and
a little wine in one of the vestibules while we are waiting for the car,
that will be all we shall require!"

"You shall do exactly as you please about it," replied Daphne. She was
greatly relieved, as one reason for her hesitation in asking them had
been the dread that Mr. Stimpson might think himself called upon to make
an after-dinner speech.

Her ladies-in-waiting were already in her Tiring-Chamber, highly
delighted by the prospect of arraying a Queen whom, even when she had
been nominally one of themselves, they had always not merely admired but
adored.

It had suddenly occurred to Daphne that the Stimpson family might find
themselves on their return to Gablehurst in certain difficulties against
which she felt bound to do what she could to protect them.

She thought over the best means of doing this, which took so much time
to carry out that