thed in gray.

She stretched herself on tiptoe by the help of her stick, and gave the
little Prince three kisses.

"This is intolerable!" cried the young lady nurse, wiping the kisses
off rapidly with her lace handkerchief. "Such an insult to his Royal
Highness! Take yourself out of the way, old woman, or the King shall be
informed immediately."

"The King knows nothing of me, more's the pity," replied the old woman,
with an indifferent air, as if she thought the loss was more on his
Majesty's side than hers. "My friend in the palace is the King's wife."

"King's have not wives, but queens," said the lady nurse, with a
contemptuous air.

"You are right," replied the old woman. "Nevertheless I know her Majesty
well, and I love her and her child. And--since you dropped him on the
marble stairs (this she said in a mysterious whisper, which made the
young lady tremble in spite of her anger)--I choose to take him for my
own, and be his godmother, ready to help him whenever he wants me."

"You help him!" cried all the group breaking into shouts of laughter,
to which the little old woman paid not the slightest attention. Her soft
gray eyes were fixed on the Prince, who seemed to answer to the look,
smiling again and again in the causeless, aimless fashion that babies do
smile.

"His Majesty must hear of this," said a gentleman-in-waiting.

"His Majesty will hear quite enough news in a minute or two," said
the old woman sadly. And again stretching up to the little Prince, she
kissed him on the forehead solemnly.

"Be called by a new name which nobody has ever thought of. Be Prince
Dolor, in memory of your mother Dolorez."

"In memory of!" Everybody started at the ominous phrase, and also at a
most terrible breach of etiquette which the old woman had committed.
In Nomansland, neither the king nor the queen was supposed to have any
Christian name at all. They dropped it on their coronation day, and it
never was mentioned again till it was engraved on their coffins when
they died.

"Old woman, you are exceedingly ill-bred," cried the eldest
lady-in-waiting, much horrified. "How you could know the fact passes
my comprehension. But even if you did know it, how dared you presume to
hint that her most gracious Majesty is called Dolorez?"

"WAS called Dolorez," said the old woman, with a tender solemnity.

The first gentleman, called the Gold-stick-in-waiting, raised it to
strike her, and all the rest stretched out thei