wanted! Ridiculous!"

By this time the little girl had mounted the parapet and was clinging
with all her might to the iron railings, while a fat motherly person had
waddled out of the underbrush in search of her, and with many
exclamations of pretended anger and indignation was endeavouring to
entice her away.

But the more the nurse scolded and pulled, the more firmly did the
little maid cling to the golden bars. At last the elderly woman, quite
out of breath, sat down on the stone ledge and addressed to her charge
the argument which in such cases betokens unconditional surrender.

"My lady Isabel, what would your noble and royal mother say," she
gasped, "thus to forget all the counsels and commands of those put in
authority over you and run to the railings to chatter with a gipsy wife?
Go away, goatherdess, or I will call the attendants and have you put in
prison!"

La Giralda had stopped her flock, obedient to the wishes of the little
maid, but now, with a low curtsey to both, she gathered them together
with her peculiar whistling cry, and prepared to continue her way down
into the village.

But this the little girl would in nowise permit. She let go the iron
rail, and with both hands clenched fell upon her attendant with
concentrated fury.

"Bad, wicked Susana," she cried, "I will have you whipped and sent about
your business. Nay, I myself will beat you. I will kill you, do you
hear? I have had nothing to eat and no one to play with for a week--not
a gardener, not a dog, not even a soldier on guard to salute me or let
me examine his sword-bayonet. And now when this dear, this sweet old
Senora comes by with her lovely, lovely goats, you must perforce try to
pull me off as if I were a village child that had played truant from the
monks' school and must be birched for its fault!"

All the while she was speaking, the young Princess directed a shower of
harmless blows at the skirts of her attendant, which Dona Susana
laughingly warded off, begging all the while for pity, and instancing
the direct commands of the little girl's mother, apparently a very
exalted personage indeed, as a reason for her interference.

But Isabel of Spain was not to be appeased, and presently she had
recourse to tears in the midst of her fury.

"You hate me--I know you do--that is what it means," she cried, "you
would not have me happy even for a moment. But one day I shall be Queen,
and do as I like! Yes, and drink as much warm goa