felt nothing but joy, joy, heart-felt
and unadulterated, for it appeared that the chief of the councillors had
in truth been more far-sighted, than other people and had not made a
mistake in his choice of a queen, for she had just borne a son, and,
moreover, one that was a true Greylock. His grey lock was indeed somewhat
thin and lacked the firm curl of the former ones; but every one who was
not colour-blind must acknowledge that it was grey.

The duchess would have liked to rejoice sincerely in her grandchild, but
her affections were divided, and even when she held it in her arms, she
yearned for the magic glass and a sight of her unlucky son.

Wendelin XVI., who had long been satiated with the pleasures which his
position offered him, finding them all flat and insipid, experienced for
the first time in twelve years a sensation of delight, like any one else,
when he heard the faint cry of the infant and learned the good news that
his child was a son. Hitherto his greatest satisfaction had been to hear
the clock strike five when he had imagined that it was only four.

The child, however, was something entirely new, and his heart, which
usually beat as slowly as a clock that is running down, quickened its
pulsations whenever he thought of his son. During the first weeks of its
life he sat for hours at a time beside the gilt cradle, staring
thoughtfully through his eye-glass at the future Wendelin XVII. Soon this
occupation ceased to interest him, and he drifted along once more on the
sluggish waves of his former existence, from minute to minute, from hour
to hour.

The queen, his companion on this placid journey, had grown to be like him
in many ways. The two yawned as other people breathe. They knew no
desires, for as everything they possessed was always the best that could
be had, to-morrow could give them nothing better than to-day. Their life
was like a long poplar alley through which they wandered lazily side by
side.

Pepe, the major-domo, after Wendelin came to the throne, was made
body-servant to the king; he, above all others, was inclined to regard
his master, born under a lucky star and possessing everything that one
could desire, as a person favoured by Fortune; yet, after he had listened
to his sighs and murmurs through many a quiet night, he reflected: "I am
better off in my own shoes."

Pepe kept his own counsel and confided to no one save old Nonna what he
knew. She, too, had learned to be discreet