The Little Lame Prince | Page 4

when he was placed
beside her fast asleep; then she gave him up with a gentle smile, and,
saying she hoped he would be very good, that it would be a very nice
christening, and all the guests would enjoy themselves, turned
peacefully over on her bed, saying nothing more to anybody. She was a
very uncomplaining person, the Queen--and her name was Dolorez.
Everything went on exactly as if she had been present. All, even the
king himself, had grown used to her absence; for she was not strong,
and for years had not joined in any gayeties. She always did her royal
duties, but as to pleasures, they could go on quite well without her, or it
seemed so. The company arrived: great and notable persons in this and
neighboring countries; also the four-and-twenty godfathers and
godmothers, who had been chosen with care, as the people who would
be most useful to his royal highness should he ever want friends, which
did not seem likely. What such want could possibly happen to the heir
of the powerful monarch of Nomansland?
They came, walking two and two, with their coronets on their
heads--being dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, or the like;

they all kissed the child and pronounced the name each had given him.
Then the four-and-twenty names were shouted out with great energy by
six heralds, one after the other, and afterward written down, to be
preserved in the state records, in readiness for the next time they were
wanted, which would be either on his Royal Highness' coronation or his
funeral.
Soon the ceremony was over, and everybody satisfied; except, perhaps,
the little Prince himself, who moaned faintly under his christening
robes, which nearly smothered him.
In truth, though very few knew, the Prince in coming to the chapel had
met with a slight disaster. His nurse,--not his ordinary one, but the state
nurse-maid,--an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whose
duty it was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupied
in arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby with the
other, that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of the marble
staircase.
To be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the next minute; and the
accident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of.
Consequently nobody did speak of it. The baby had turned deadly pale,
but did not cry, so no person a step or two behind could discover
anything wrong; afterward, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets
were loud enough to drown his voice. It would have been a pity to let
anything trouble such a day of felicity.
So, after a minute's pause, the procession had moved on. Such a
procession t Heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold; and
a troop of little girls in dazzling white, carrying baskets of flowers,
which they strewed all the way before the nurse and child--finally the
four- and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, as proud as possible, and
so splendid to look at that they would have quite extinguished their
small godson--merely a heap of lace and muslin with a baby face
inside--had it not been for a canopy of white satin and ostrich feathers
which was held over him wherever he was carried.
Thus, with the sun shining on them through the painted windows, they

stood; the king and his train on one side, the Prince and his attendants
on the other, as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.
"It's just like fairyland," whispered the eldest little girl to the next eldest,
as she shook the last rose out of her basket; "and I think the only thing
the Prince wants now is a fairy god- mother."
"Does he?" said a shrill but soft and not unpleasant voice behind; and
there was seen among the group of children somebody,--not a child, yet
no bigger than a child,--somebody whom nobody had seen before, and
who certainly had not been invited, for she had no christening clothes
on.
She was a little old woman dressed all in gray: gray gown; gray hooded
cloak, of a material excessively fine, and a tint that seemed perpetually
changing, like the gray of an evening sky. Her hair was gray, and her
eyes also--even her complexion had a soft gray shadow over it. But
there was nothing unpleasantly old about her, and her smile was as
sweet and childlike as the Prince's own, which stole over his pale little
face the instant she came near enough to touch him.
"Take care! Don't let the baby fall again."
The grand young lady nurse started, flushing angrily.
"Who spoke to me? How did anybody know? --I mean, what business