ream, and not--not----"

"How could it be anything else? Besides, here we all _are_, exactly as
we were!"

"We've got our cloaks and things on, though," said Ruby. "_I_ know how
it was! We've been brought here in the stork-car while we were fast
asleep. We sat up ever so long waiting for it."

"It can't be! I won't believe anything so absurd. Draw the curtains,
somebody, and pull up the blinds.... It's odd, but it certainly looks
more like early morning than any other time. Clarence, go out and strike
the gong. Perhaps the maids haven't finished dressing yet."

Clarence went out accordingly. The gong bellowed and boomed from the
hall, but there was no sound of stirring above. "I say," he reported,
"I've just looked into the dining-room, and all the chairs are upside
down on the table. That looks rather as if we'd been away for a
bit--what?"

"Clarence! You're not beginning to think that--that all that about our
having been a Royal Family may be _true_?"

"Well, Mater," he said, "if we haven't been in Maerchenland, where _have_
we been? Oh yes, we've been Royalties right enough--and a pretty rotten
job we made of it!"

At this time there was a deprecatory knock at the drawing-room door.
"Mitchell!" cried her mistress, "don't you know better than to--?"
However, it was not Mitchell that entered--but a person unknown--a
respectable-looking elderly female, who seemed to have made a hasty
toilette.

"Askin' your pardons," she said, "but if you were wishing to see the
family, they're away just now."

"We _are_ the family," replied Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson. "We have
been--er--abroad, but have returned. And we should be glad of breakfast
at once."

"I can git you a cup of tea as soon as the kittle's on the boil," she
said, "but I'm only put in as caretaker like, and I've nothink in the
'ouse except bread and butter. The shops'll be opening now, so if you
don't object to waiting a little, I could go out and get you a naddick
and eggs and such like."

"Yes, buck up, old lady!" said Clarence, "and I say, see if you can get
a _Daily Mail_ or a paper of some sort."

"What are you so anxious to see the paper for?" inquired Edna after the
caretaker had departed.

"Only wanted to know what month we're in," he said. "It would have
looked so silly to ask her what day it is. We must have been--over
there--a good long time."

"At least a year!" said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, no longer able to
sustain the dream theory. "Mo