shoulders, and wearing a gold cap with a tall peacock's feather in it.
He got off his horse; and in another moment he had opened the cottage
door and walked into the washing-room.

The poor woman was at first vastly frightened, for she thought this
must be the King, and that he was going to cut off her head because
she used chemicals in her washing--though she had never done such a
thing except when she was very much pressed for time, or when the
water was so hard that the soap would not make suds. However, like a
wise woman as she was, she made up her mind not to ask for mercy until
she had heard her accusation; so she dropped half a dozen curtseys,
and begged to know what his Gracious Royal Majesty's Highness wanted.

Meanwhile, the little boy, from his seat beside the wash-tub, stared
and stared at the magnificent stranger, and was sure he never could
stare at him enough. The stranger was tall, thin, and as straight as a
hop-pole; had a huge aquiline nose, with a pair of long moustachios
jutting out beneath it and curling up to his eyes; and on his chin was
a sharp-pointed beard. The steam from the wash-tub filled the little
room and swam in misty clouds round this singular figure; while the
last soap-bubble which the little boy had blown from his pipe rose in
the air and circled round and round the yellow cap like a planet
round the sun. Altogether he looked like an Eastern genie in an
English court-dress--an uncommon sight in the times I write of.

This personage now made two profound obeisances, one to the
washerwoman and one to the little boy. This done, he threw back his
silk-lined cloak, and taking from the pocket of his doublet a bundle
of something done up in gold paper, he opened his mouth and said--

'O yez! O yez! O yez! Whereas his Transparent Majesty King Ormund,
Emperor of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith,
and so forth, and so forth, did, while riding through this village
called Honeymead, splash with mud his left Transparent stocking: now,
therefore, O washerwoman, it is his gracious will and pleasure that
you do hereby wash the same, with all due and proper diligence and
despatch, and with the smallest possible amount of unnecessary
procrastination. Long live his Transparency King Ormund!'

In fact, the gold paper contained a fine pink silk stocking, with
embroidered clocks, a hole in the toe, and seven spots of mud
spattered over it. The washerwoman had understood very