comforting her.  “There is no great harm done yet, and perhaps they would not believe you if you did explain; but just think, if some people ceased to believe in Science, what would they have left to believe in?  But you are young, of course, and cannot be expected to think of everything.”

“I never thought about it at all,” wept Jaqueline.

“‘Evil is wrought by want of thought,’” said the king, quoting the poet.  “Now run away, dry your tears, and I think you had better bring me that book, and I’ll put it back in one of the locked-up shelves.  Later, when you are older, we shall see about it.”

The princess flew to her room, and returned with her book.  And the king kissed her, and told her to go and see if her Majesty meant to take a drive.

“I’ll never deceive him again, never . . . unless it is quite necessary,” said the princess to herself.  “Indeed, it is not so easy to deceive the king.  What a lot he has read!”

In fact, King Prigio had been very studious when a young man, before he came to the throne.

“Poor child!” thought the king.  “No doubt she was trying her fortune, wondering if Ricardo cares for her a little.  Of course

I could not let her tell me that, poor child!”

In this guess, as we know, his Majesty was mistaken, which seldom happened to him.

“I wonder who she is?” the king went on speaking to himself.  “That great booby, Ricardo, saved her from wild birds, which were just going to eat her.  She was fastened to a mountain top, but where? that’s the question.  Ricardo never has any notion of geography.  It was across the sea, he noticed that; but which sea,—Atlantic, Pacific, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of Marmora, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the German Ocean, the Mediterranean?  Her ornaments were very peculiar; there was a broad gold sun on her breast.  I must look at them again some day.  She said she was being sacrificed to wild birds (which her people worshipped), because there was some famine, or war, or trouble in the

country.  She said she was a Daughter of the Sun; but that, of course, is absurd, unless—By Jove!  I believe I have it,” said the king, and he went into the royal library and was looking for some old Spanish book, when his secretary came and said that the Russian Ambassador was waiting for an interview with his Majesty.

“Dismal old Muscovite!” sighed the king.  “A monarch has not a moment to himself for his private studies.  Ah, Prigio! why wert thou not born to a private station?  But Duty before everything,” and wreathing his royal countenance in smiles, his Majesty prepared to give Count Snoreonski an audience.

It was all about the attitude of Pantouflia in the event of a Polish invasion of Russia.  The king reassured Count Snoreonski, affirming that Pantouflia, while deeply regretting the disturbed relations between two States in whose welfare

she was deeply interested, would ever preserve an attitude of benevolent neutrality, unless her own interests were threatened.

“I may give your message to my august mistress, the Czarina?” said the ambassador.

“By all means, adding an expression of my tender interest in her Majesty’s health and welfare,” said the king, presenting the count at the same time with a magnificent diamond snuffbox containing his portrait.

The old count was affected to tears, and withdrew, while King Prigio said:

“I have not lost a day; I have made an amiable but very stupid man happy.”

Such are, or rather such were, the toils of monarchs!