Holiday Romance | Page 8

wanting the reason. No reason. There! Hoity toity me! I am sick
of your grown-up reasons.'
The king was extremely frightened by the old lady's flying into such a
passion, and said he was very sorry to have offended her, and he
wouldn't ask for reasons any more.
'Be good, then,' said the old lady, 'and don't!'
With those words, Grandmarina vanished, and the king went on and on
and on, till he came to the office. There he wrote and wrote and wrote,

till it was time to go home again. Then he politely invited the Princess
Alicia, as the fairy had directed him, to partake of the salmon. And
when she had enjoyed it very much, he saw the fish-bone on her plate,
as the fairy had told him he would, and he delivered the fairy's message,
and the Princess Alicia took care to dry the bone, and to rub it, and to
polish it, till it shone like mother-of-pearl.
And so, when the queen was going to get up in the morning, she said,
'O, dear me, dear me; my head, my head!' and then she fainted away.
The Princess Alicia, who happened to be looking in at the chamber-
door, asking about breakfast, was very much alarmed when she saw her
royal mamma in this state, and she rang the bell for Peggy, which was
the name of the lord chamberlain. But remembering where the
smelling-bottle was, she climbed on a chair and got it; and after that she
climbed on another chair by the bedside, and held the smelling-bottle to
the queen's nose; and after that she jumped down and got some water;
and after that she jumped up again and wetted the queen's forehead; and,
in short, when the lord chamberlain came in, that dear old woman said
to the little princess, 'What a trot you are! I couldn't have done it better
myself!'
But that was not the worst of the good queen's illness. O, no! She was
very ill indeed, for a long time. The Princess Alicia kept the seventeen
young princes and princesses quiet, and dressed and undressed and
danced the baby, and made the kettle boil, and heated the soup, and
swept the hearth, and poured out the medicine, and nursed the queen,
and did all that ever she could, and was as busy, busy, busy as busy
could be; for there were not many servants at that palace for three
reasons: because the king was short of money, because a rise in his
office never seemed to come, and because quarter-day was so far off
that it looked almost as far off and as little as one of the stars.
But on the morning when the queen fainted away, where was the magic
fish-bone? Why, there it was in the Princess Alicia's pocket! She had
almost taken it out to bring the queen to life again, when she put it back,
and looked for the smelling-bottle.
After the queen had come out of her swoon that morning, and was
dozing, the Princess Alicia hurried up-stairs to tell a most particular
secret to a most particularly confidential friend of hers, who was a
duchess. People did suppose her to be a doll; but she was really a

duchess, though nobody knew it except the princess.
This most particular secret was the secret about the magic fish- bone,
the history of which was well known to the duchess, because the
princess told her everything. The princess kneeled down by the bed on
which the duchess was lying, full-dressed and wide awake, and
whispered the secret to her. The duchess smiled and nodded. People
might have supposed that she never smiled and nodded; but she often
did, though nobody knew it except the princess.
Then the Princess Alicia hurried down-stairs again, to keep watch in
the queen's room. She often kept watch by herself in the queen's room;
but every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with
the king. And every evening the king sat looking at her with a cross
look, wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. As
often as she noticed this, she ran up- stairs, whispered the secret to the
duchess over again, and said to the duchess besides, 'They think we
children never have a reason or a meaning!' And the duchess, though
the most fashionable duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye.
'Alicia,' said the king, one evening, when she wished him good- night.
'Yes, papa.'
'What is become of the magic fish-bone?'
'In my pocket, papa!'
'I thought you had lost it?'
'O, no, papa!'
'Or forgotten it?'
'No, indeed, papa.'
And so another time the dreadful little snapping pug-dog, next door,
made a rush at one of the young