his cure. This year it has taken longer."

"It hasn't! He is putting on weight again; only yesterday he told me so.
You can't get more cured when that has begun, because it means that you
are acclimatized."

"It's no use your talking as if you were a medical authority, my dear,
and offering your advice, for we shan't take it."

Charlotte opened her mouth and bottled a breath before she next spoke.

"Who sent him my photograph?"

"Gracious me, child, anybody can get your photograph. Isn't it in all
the shop-windows?"

"Not in South America."

"Oh, yes; they are getting quite civilized over there now."

Charlotte struck at a venture.

"_You_ sent it; you know you did! Yes, and then he sent you that thing
of himself."

"My dear Charlotte," said the Queen composedly, "you needn't get
excited; these little exchanges do sometimes happen quite naturally in
the course of correspondence, and I have a great deal of correspondence
as you know. Now do forget everything that foolish newspaper has been
saying, and look at the thing sensibly. Isn't it my duty to give you
every chance of meeting those--those whom it is suitable for you to
meet? Are you always going to begin by saying you won't know people?"

"Begin what?" Charlotte shot the question; the Queen turned it aside and
went on.

"Now here is a case: this young man who has been away three years among
savages--I wonder he wasn't eaten by them--running into all sorts of
dangers and doing a lot of foolish brave things that he needn't have
done; and then his uncle, the Prince, dying behind his back and
everything left to a regency waiting his return. Isn't it quite natural,
seeing how things are, that he should be wishing to settle down? Now I
am going to be quite frank with you. He has seen your photograph, I
know; but I didn't send it to him, and he didn't send me his. We heard
that he intended coming to see us--to Jingalo, I mean--and after that I
got it; as a matter of fact his aunt, the Margravine, sent it to me; and
I, in exchange, sent her yours."

"Ah! so that was why she came to see us directly we got here, and why
she looked at me so, and kept asking me so many questions about myself.
I couldn't understand it at the time--her being so curious. But you
knew, yes, you knew!"

"Well, what if I did?"

"Oh!" cried the Princess, "why, why was I born?"

And then her indignation broke loose, and she became, as the Queen
afterwards remarked to her husband wh