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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "You seem to forget that, but for one of them, you would never have come into your Kingdom!"

      "That may or may not be. At any rate there is no further necessity for them, and – well, it just comes to this, Madam, either they go or you do."

      The old Fairy's eyes smouldered with anger, and her nut-cracker mouth and chin champed for a few seconds before she replied.

      "I have occupied rooms in this Palace – when not at the Palace of Clairdelune – for over a century and a half, and I have no intention of giving them up. I shall also continue to use the vehicles which I find most convenient."

      "Oh?" said the Queen, "will you? We shall see about that!"

      "We shall," the Court Godmother retorted. "I don't think you quite realise yet whom you have to deal with. I may be getting on in years, but both here and at Clairdelune I am accustomed to being treated with more deference and respect than you seem disposed to pay me. You see, they know that, although I have not used the full powers I possess as a Fairy for many years past, I have not lost them altogether. I might see fit to employ them once more – on any person who was rash enough to incur my displeasure. And ingratitude and pride are the failings which I always made it my particular business to correct. You would find it more to your advantage to be on good terms with me." There was no mistaking the veiled threat, and Queen Selina no longer doubted the Fairy's abilities to carry it out. She was worsted, and her only course was to give in gracefully.

      "My dear Court Godmother!" she cried, "you quite misunderstood me! I'd no wish to interfere with any of your habits – not in the very slightest degree. All I meant was that, perhaps, at your age, a more ordinary carriage than your present ones might be – er —safer, you know!"

      "I am quite capable of looking after my own safety, thank you. But, though you are our beloved Prince's daughter, you have been brought up in ignorance of the ways of this country, so I am the more willing to overlook treatment to which I feel sure I shall not have to draw your attention again. And now, as we quite understand one another, my dear, we will say no more about it. By the way, I hear you haven't sent for any of your ladies-in-waiting this morning. How is that?"

      "I – I didn't quite like to, Court Godmother. We're – well, hardly intimate as yet. They are so reserved and distant – especially that Princess Rapunzelhauser. But, of course, she comes of a very high family."

      "She is descended from the famous Rapunzel, whose story is no doubt familiar to you… No? Well, her father was a poor cottager who was caught by an old witch stealing radishes from her garden. She let him off on condition that he gave up to her the child his wife was expecting. Rapunzel was the child, and in due time was claimed by the witch, who shut her up in a lofty tower. However, she had the most wonderful hair, so long that when she let it down from the top window it touched the ground, and so thick that the Prince whom she subsequently married was able to climb up by it, and make love to her."

      "Now you mention it, I have some faint recollection – and so Princess Rapunzelhauser is descended from her! Well, that would account for – but Princess Goldenenfinger – something, now, she does look as if she had some good blood in her veins."

      "The best in Märchenland. An ancestor of hers was King of one of the smaller Kingdoms into which the country was divided in those days. One day when out hunting he found a woodcutter's daughter living all alone in a hollow tree, and fell violently in love with her."

      "A woodcutter's daughter? Dear me! Then, of course, marriage was out of the question."

      "Not at all! they were married and had children. Unfortunately there was an estrangement between the King and Queen later as she was accused of having murdered them, and condemned to be burnt to death."

      "It only shows what a mistake it is to marry beneath one."

      "This marriage ended happily. It was discovered, just in time, that the children were alive after all."

      "Still," said the Queen, "it is not a pleasant thing to have happened in any family. I should like to hear something about the pedigrees of my other ladies-in-waiting."

      The Court Godmother was quite ready to give her all the information she could. Princess Flachspinnenlosburg, it appeared, traced her descent from the incorrigibly lazy daughter of a poor and not over scrupulous mother; Baroness Belohnte von Haulemännerschen from similarly humble folk, whose daughter was servant of all work to seven dwarfs, and afterwards married the King of one of the petty states before mentioned; Baroness von Bauerngrosstochterheimer's ancestor was a peasant; Countess Gänsehirten am Brunnen's ancestress a goose-girl – and so on through the entire list. Queen Selina then became curious as to the origin of the gentlemen of her Court, and found that many of their forbears were sullied by the taint of Trade. The founders of both Prince Tapfer von Schneiderleinberg's and Count Daumerlingenstamm's houses were tailors; Baron von Bohnenranken derived his title from a speculator who, after a remarkably unsuccessful venture in cattle, had made a colossal coup in beans. As for Prince Hansmeinigel, his pretensions to high descent were even more questionable – at least, if it was actually the fact, as the Fairy stated, that the first of his progenitors was not only the son of a poor father, but also suffered the additional social disadvantage of being a hedgehog from the waist upwards; added to which he seemed to have cherished an eccentric passion for playing the bagpipes while riding on a cock. It is true that, after his marriage with a Princess, he became a less impossible member of Society – still, as the Queen very rightly felt, there are some things which can never be altogether lived down.

      "I'm much obliged to you for telling me all this, Court Godmother," she said, at the end; "most interesting, I'm sure. And so useful to know who everybody really is!"

      It was something of a disillusion to find that her Court was so largely composed of parvenus, but, on the other hand, it enabled her to face her ladies-in-waiting in future without any distressing sense of inferiority.

      She was on the point of summoning them when the King suddenly burst into her bower. "Selina, my love," he began, with suppressed excitement, "if you'll tell this good woman to go, I've something to say to you."

      "Oblige me, Sidney," replied the Queen, "by not alluding to the High Court Godmother again as a good woman; we may consider ourselves very fortunate that she is doing us the honour of residing under our roof, and you will be good enough to show her proper respect."

      "Oh, sorry, I'm sure; I thought you said – but if that's how it is, I apologise for interrupting you."

      "I have said all I have to say," said the Court Godmother, "so there is no need for me to remain any longer." And with that she hobbled out of the room.

      "I suppose you got your way about those – ah – bird-chariots, my dear?" he asked, "as you don't seem to have sacked her!"

      "She seemed so upset at the idea of giving them up that I said she might keep them. I shall certainly not 'sack' her, as you call it. Now I've come to know her better, I find she is a good, faithful old soul who is much too useful to part with, and you must be very careful to be civil to her in future. What was it you wanted to say to me?"

      "The Lord Treasurer and I have been going into our private resources," he said. "I thought perhaps you might like to come with me to my Counting-house and – and have a look at 'em, my dear."

      She was only too eager to do so. "Tell me, Sidney," she gasped, as they hurried through various corridors to the wing in which the King's Counting-house was situated. "Shall we – shall we have enough to live on decently?"

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