the business of arraying her for her first banquet as
a Royal Hostess had to be got through more hurriedly than her ladies of
the Bedchamber thought at all decorous.

But she knew that Mirliflor would be well content with her, however she
looked--and as a matter of fact he not only was, but had every reason to
be so.

The Wibberley-Stimpsons had already ascertained that the clothes they
had worn on their arrival in Maerchenland had been carefully laid up in
one of the Royal wardrobes, from which they were brought at their
earnest request. They put them on in frantic haste, and, in deadly fear
of being surprised by the Royal Household, they stole down the great
Staircase to an antechamber by the Entrance Hall. There they found a
table set with every description of tempting food, to which all did
justice but Mrs. Stimpson, the state of whose nerves had entirely taken
away her appetite. She was continually starting up and saying, "Listen!
I'm _sure_ I hear these storks!"

"You'd better eat something, Mater," Clarence said. "It's the last
dinner we shall ever have in Maerchenland."

"I can't," she replied, "I don't know how any of _you_ can.... There go
the silver trumpets! She's going into the Banqueting Hall now. On Prince
Mirliflor's arm, most likely! How she can have the _heart_ when she
_must_ know we are still here!"

"She _did_ ask us to dinner, my love," Mr. Stimpson mildly reminded her.

"She had the execrable taste to do that, Sidney," replied his wife, "and
I think the manner in which I declined must have been a lesson to
her.... Dear me, is that car _never_ coming?"

She said that many times during the evening, as they sat on in the ebony
and ivory chamber, while the strains of music reached them faintly from
the distant Ballroom.

Clarence thought gloomily of the dance on the night of the Coronation,
and how his mother had forbidden him to choose Daphne as his partner.
Perhaps, if he had insisted on having his own way--if he had not limited
himself to a merely morganatic alliance, she might have--but it was too
late to grouse about that now! He endeavoured to cheer himself by the
thought that he would very soon be in a civilised land of cigarettes.

It was getting late, and the music had now ceased, from which they
gathered that the Queen and Court had already retired. "She _might_ have
had the common civility to say good-bye to us!" complained Mrs.
Stimpson, "but of course she is too grand now to co