amily."

The Marshal seemed a little taken aback at first, but he promptly
recovered himself, and bending so low that his feathers brushed Mrs.
Wibberley-Stimpson's nose, he placed in her hand a small velvet-covered
baton studded with gold stars.

"Oh, thank you very much, I'm sure," she said. "It's quite charming. Has
it got an address or anything inside it?"

"The symbol of my authority, your Majesty," he said, with soldierly
curtness. "I have long desired to surrender it to hands more worthy to
govern than mine."

"Very handsome of you to say so," replied Mr. Stimpson; "but I daresay
you aren't altogether sorry to get out of it, eh?"

"It is too lofty a position, Sire, for a rough, simple warrior like
myself," he said. "Nothing but a sense of duty to my country would have
made me accept the Regency at all."

"I am sure," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "we shall find you have
carried on the Kingdom for us as satisfactorily as possible."

"The people appeared to think so, your Majesty. But I am forgetting the
chief purpose I am here for. I have the honour to announce that the
procession will shortly be on its way to escort your Majesties to your
Coronation, which is to take place this morning in the great church of
Eswareinmal."

"_Coronation!_" Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson almost screamed. "Before we have
so much as had our breakfast! And in these things we are wearing now! I
never heard of anything so preposterous!"

"I don't care much myself," said Mr. Stimpson, "about being crowned on
an empty--without having had something to eat--if it's only an egg."

"If they're going to crown the Guv'nor in a dinner-jacket and white
tie," Clarence muttered to Edna, "we shall never hear the last of it,
that's all!"

"There is nothing to make a fuss about, my dear," said the Court
Godmother to Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, as though she were addressing a
froward child; "look behind you, and you will see that everything you
may require is already provided."

They looked and saw two velvet Marquees, one striped in broad bands of
apple-green and mazarine blue, the other in pale rose and cream, which a
party of attendants had just finished putting up. "In those pavilions,"
continued the Fairy, "you will find not only food prepared for you, but
robes such as are fitting for a Coronation. You will have plenty of time
both to eat and change your dress before the procession can possibly
arrive."

"She's not likely to have got our m