Page:Oswald Bastable and Others - Nesbit.djvu/390

344 and with themselves, which is how people ought always to feel after a party.

When they had all gone she went and curled up at the feet of her father, who had sunk back on his throne exhausted by his hospitable exertions. The two were quite alone, except for a particularly fine house-fly who had settled on the back of the throne, just above the carved Royal arms. Of course, neither the King nor the Princess noticed such a little thing as a fly.

'Well, daddy dear,' said the Princess, 'did it go off all right? Did I behave prettily?'

'Ah!' said the King, 'you're a born Princess, my pet. Pretty face, pretty manners, good heart, good head. You're your dear mother over again. And that reminds me'

'Yes?' said the Princess.

'When your mother died,' said the King—and he sighed, though it was twenty-one years to a day since he had lost his Queen-love—'I promised her to lock up her apartments, and only to give the keys of them to you when you should be twenty-one. And now you are, so here are the keys, my precious. You've always wanted to explore the rooms in the south wing. Well, now you can.'