LITMIR.BIZ

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hanging half out of the window like that!"

      Ruby sat down rather sullenly. Clarence would have liked to put his own head out if it had been consistent with his dignity as a Prince. As it was, he could only hope that Daphne would come to no harm. "Really!" continued Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "what with one's governess riding behind one's coach, and those two ridiculous bird-cars probably flapping overhead, this is quite unlike any Coronation Procession I ever heard of!"

      "More like a bally Circus," remarked Clarence. "Only wants a couple of clowns with bladders on horseback and a performing elephant."

      "I consider," said his mother, "that a State procession should have more solemnity about it… How horribly this coach jolts! It can't have any springs!.. There you are again, Edna, buried in that note-book! you might show a little interest in what is going on!"

      "I'm sorry, mother, but it all seems to mean so little to me."

      "Then all I can say is – good gracious, what a lurch! I quite thought we were over! – all I can say is that it's unnatural to be so abstracted as you are. We're getting close to Eswar – whatever they call it. If you look round you will see the walls and towers."

      Edna adapted her pince-nez and turned perfunctorily for a moment. "Quite quaint!" she said, and resumed her reading.

      "Picturesque, I should call it," corrected her mother. "Sidney, doesn't it put you in mind of dear lovely Lucerne?"

      "Very much so, my love," he replied, "or – er – Venice" (neither of which cities, as a matter of fact, did Eswareinmal resemble in the least). "Hullo! what are we stopping for now, eh?"

      It seemed they had arrived at the principal gates of the Capital, where the Burgomaster and other civic dignitaries were assembled to welcome and to do them homage, which they did with every sign of respect and loyalty. As Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson felt unequal to the efforts of responding, that duty devolved on her husband, who presented himself at the window of the coach, and made what the reporters, had any been present, would no doubt have described as "a few gracious and appropriate remarks."

      "You needn't have said that about 'doing our best to give satisfaction,' Sidney!" complained his wife after the coach had thundered over the drawbridge, and was lumbering under the massive archway into a narrow and crowded street, "for all the world as if we had been a butler and housekeeper applying for a situation!"

      "It was a little unfortunate, perhaps, my dear," he admitted; "but it is so difficult to know what to say when one has to speak impromptu."

      "It ought to be easy enough to know what not to say," she retorted. "Dear me, what hosts of people!" she went on, as her irritation merged into complacency. "And how pleased they all seem to see us! But no doubt, after a bachelor Regent, a whole Royal family – I love to see their happy smiling faces!"

      "Grinning mugs would be nearer the mark, Mater," said Clarence; "never saw such a chuckle-headed lot of bumpkins in my life!"

      "I will thank you to remember, Clarence," she replied, "that they are my loyal subjects, and will be yours at some time to come."

      "I can wait for 'em," he said; "and if they're so jolly loyal, why ain't they cheering more?"

      Slowly the golden coach progressed through winding streets of gabled or step-roofed houses with toppling overhanging stories, then along one side of a great square, packed with people in costume, the women recalling to Mrs. Stimpson's mind, quite inappropriately, the waitresses at the Rigi Kulm hotel on a Sunday. Then, through more narrow streets, to a smaller square, where it stopped at some steps leading to the huge West portal of a magnificent buttressed Church.

      "All change here – for the Coronation!" said Clarence. "I'd better nip out first, eh, Mater?"

      "Your father and I get out first, naturally, Clarence," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, and descended majestically, Mr. Stimpson following with somewhat less effect owing to an attack of cramp in his left leg. Four small pages stepped forward in pairs to carry Mr. and Mrs. Stimpson's trains, which they found a distinct convenience, and, hand in hand, they passed through the great, elaborately niched and statued doorway into the nave. The interior was thronged by all the notables of Märchenland, including the venerable President of the Council and his Councillors. Above, the light struck in shafts through the painted windows of the clerestory, tinging the haze of incense fumes with faint colours. On the high altar twinkled innumerable tapers. "Roman! as I suspected!" whispered Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson on seeing them, and sniffing the scented atmosphere. (She had attended St. John's at Gablehurst, because the vicar, although Evangelical, was well-known to be of good family.) Under a crimson canopy in the choir were two golden chairs which they understood they were expected to sit upon, and occupied accordingly. A mitred and coped ecclesiastic, who appeared to be some kind of Bishop, then shepherded them benevolently through a series of mystic rites that, besides being hopelessly unintelligible, seemed unreasonably protracted. However, they reached the climax at last, and amidst the tumultuous acclamations of the spectators the previously anointed heads of King Sidney and Queen Selina, as they must henceforth be described, received their respective crowns.

      "Ha, well," remarked King Sidney, when he and the rest of the Royal family were once more in the coach, and on their way towards the palace that was to be their future home, "we got through it most successfully on the whole. Perhaps the Bishop was a little too lavish with the anointing part of the ceremony. Still, taken altogether, it was – ah – a very solemnising affair."

      "It would have been more so, Sidney," said the Queen, "if you hadn't kept on dropping your sceptre and tripping over your train. I don't wonder the Bishop got flustered. But I do wish we could have had it properly done by the dear Archbishop of Canterbury!"

      "Bit out of his diocese, Märchenland, what?" said the Crown Prince.

      "I'm aware of that, Clarence; and, of course, we're legally crowned, whoever did it… Sidney, it's only just struck me, but I'm sure we ought to be bowing. Bow, children, all of you – take the time from me. Sidney, why aren't you bowing?"

      "I can't, my love. It's difficult enough to keep my crown on as it is!"

      "You can hold it on with one hand, can't you? You simply must bow if you don't want to be unpopular! So must you, children. Keep on with it!"

      "Give us a rest, Mater," said Prince Clarence, after they had been nodding like Chinese mandarins for some minutes. "My neck's beginning to wilt already!"

      Queen Selina herself was not sorry to stop. "It's certainly very fatiguing at first," she admitted; "we must practise it together in private… Was that old Mrs. Fogleplug's dove-chariot that passed us just now? I'm afraid I shall have to put her in her place. She's rather inclined to forget herself – not only addressed me as 'my dear,' but actually attempted to kiss me after the Coronation!"

      "So she did me!" said the Princess Royal, "but I hope I showed that I thought she was taking a liberty."

      "She's a very worthy, well-meaning old creature, no doubt," remarked the Queen; "still, a Fairy Godmother in these days is really rather– I shall have to get her to retire – on a pension."

      "She'll stick on," said Prince Clarence, "you see if she don't. Means to boss the whole show."

      "I shall soon let her see that I intend to be mistress in my own Kingdom," said the Queen. "I could wish, I must say, that it was just a little more up to date! Everything so dreadfully behind the times! I haven't seen a shop yet with a plate-glass front, and not a single pillar-box!"

      "Poor sort of place for Suffragettes, what?" observed Clarence.

      "Frivolity apart, Clarence," remarked the Queen, "I can see already that there is much to be done here before the country can be called really civilised. We must set ourselves to raise the standard by introducing modern ideas – enlighten people's minds, and all the rest of it. And you must do your share, Sidney, as I shall do mine."

      "Certainly," said the King; "I'm agreeable. All for progress myself. Always have been… I fancy that must be our Palace up there. A truly palatial residence – replete, I've no doubt, with every

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