Then came lessons with dear old Professor Ouatidontnoisuntwuthnoing, and
then more play, and dinner, and needlework, and play again.

And now it was teatime.

'Eat up your bread-and-butter, your Highness,' said nurse, 'and then you
shall have some nice plummy cake.'

'I don't feel plum-cakey at all to-day, somehow,' said the Princess. 'I
feel just exactly as if something was going to happen.'

'Something's always happening,' said nurse.

'Ah! but I mean something horrid,' said the Princess. 'I expect uncle's
going to make some nasty new law about me. Last time it was: "The
Princess is only to wear a white frock on the first Sunday in the
month." He said it was economy, but I know it was only spite.'

'You mustn't say that, dear,' said nurse. 'You know your rosy and bluey
frocks are just as pretty as the white;' but in her heart she agreed
with the Princess Everilda.

The Princess's father and mother had died when she was quite little,
and her uncle was Regent. Now, you will have noticed that there is
something about uncles which makes it impossible for them to be good in
fairy stories. So of course this uncle was bad, as bad as he could be,
and everyone hated him.

In fact, though it was now, as I have said, everybody's teatime, nobody
was making any tea: instead they were making a revolution. And just as
the Princess was looking at the half-moon-shaped hole left by her first
bite into her first piece of bread-and-butter, the good Professor burst
into the nursery with his great gray wig all on one side, crying out in
a very loud and very choky voice:

'The revolution! It's come at last. I _knew_ the people would never
stand that last tax on soap.'

'The Princess!' said nurse, turning very pale.

'Yes, I know,' said the Professor. 'There's a boat on the canal, blue
sails with gold letters "P.P."--Pupil of the Professor. It's waiting.
You go down there at once. I'll take the Princess out down the back
stairs.'

He caught the Princess by her pink bread-and-buttery hand, and dragged
her away.

'Hurry, my dear,' he panted; 'it's as much as your life is worth to
delay a minute.'

But he himself delayed quite three minutes, and that was one minute too
long. He had just run into the palace library for the manuscript of his
life's work, 'Everything Easily Explained,' when the revolutionary crowd
burst in, shouting 'Liberty and Soap!' and caught him. They did not see
the Princess Everilda, because he had just