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202 going to say on a slate and learned it off by heart, so she was able to go on fluently.

“Your Majesty, I am not wholly to blame—hang me if I am—I mean hang me if you must; but first allow me to have the honour of offering to you one or two explanatory remarks.”

With this she sat down and told him the whole story of the Professor’s visit, only stopping exactly where I stopped when I was telling it to you just now.

The King listened, plucking nervously at the fringe of a purple and crimson antimacassar.

“I never was satisfied with the Professor’s methods,” said Miss Fitzroy Robinson sadly; “and I always had my doubts as to his moral character, doubts now set at rest for ever. After concluding my course of instruction with him some years ago I took a series of lessons from a far more efficient master, and thanks to those lessons, which were, I may mention, extremely costly, I was mercifully enabled to put a spoke in the wheel of the unprincipled ruffian——”

“Did you save the Princesses?” cried the King.

“No; but I can if your Majesty and the