of the processional movement was seen. Then came
white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald
ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and
then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the
ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a
passionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal
procession became a triumphal progress.

II

The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their
destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that
between them they had risen to the occasion and had passed exceedingly
well through an ordeal that falls only to few.

And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal
reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two
Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of
ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates,
and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the
belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen.

And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there assembled broke
into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the
Judges and the Bishops cheered too--a thing that none of them had done
individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity,
judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before.

Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and
for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice
to the thankfulness that was felt by all.

The Archbishop performed his part the better of the two; for between him
and his sovereign there were no strained relations; he was also on
closer terms of reference to the Powers above; and so, while giving
earthly circumstances their due, he rendered grateful thanks to a
Beneficence which had guided and directed all. The Prime Minister did
not.

The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene
when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of
their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted
and gone back to the repetition of a former phrase, like one who having
learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it.

The circumstance did not greatly impress him at the time, he was ready
to make allowances, for between him and his ministe