udge's, and their
hair was frizzed out and powdered, and a long thick "pigtail," with a
bow to it, hung down the back of each.

All these servants were diminutive, and ludicrously out of proportion
with the enormous horses of the equipage, and had sharp, sallow
features, and small, restless fiery eyes, and faces of cunning and
malice that chilled the children. The little coachman was scowling and
showing his white fangs under his cocked hat, and his little blazing
beads of eyes were quivering with fury in their sockets as he whirled
his whip round and round over their heads, till the lash of it looked
like a streak of fire in the evening sun, and sounded like the cry of
a legion of "fillapoueeks" in the air.

"Stop the princess on the highway!" cried the coachman, in a piercing
treble.

"Stop the princess on the highway!" piped each footman in turn,
scowling over his shoulder down on the children, and grinding his keen
teeth.

The children were so frightened they could only gape and turn white in
their panic. But a very sweet voice from the open window of the
carriage reassured them, and arrested the attack of the lackeys.

A beautiful and "very grand-looking" lady was smiling from it on them,
and they all felt pleased in the strange light of that smile.

"The boy with the golden hair, I think," said the lady, bending her
large and wonderfully clear eyes on little Leum.

The upper sides of the carriage were chiefly of glass, so that the
children could see another woman inside, whom they did not like so
well.

This was a black woman, with a wonderfully long neck, hung round with
many strings of large variously-coloured beads, and on her head was a
sort of turban of silk striped with all the colours of the rainbow,
and fixed in it was a golden star.

This black woman had a face as thin almost as a death's-head, with
high cheekbones, and great goggle eyes, the whites of which, as well
as her wide range of teeth, showed in brilliant contrast with her
skin, as she looked over the beautiful lady's shoulder, and whispered
something in her ear.

"Yes; the boy with the golden hair, I think," repeated the lady.

And her voice sounded sweet as a silver bell in the children's ears,
and her smile beguiled them like the light of an enchanted lamp, as
she leaned from the window with a look of ineffable fondness on the
golden-haired boy, with the large blue eyes; insomuch that little
Billy, looking up, smiled in return w