Page:The Princess of Cozytown.pdf/89

 have loved her to pieces! Even her name was a dancy sort of name, for it was Dianidra.

Well, poor Dianidra grew every day more thin and sad, because all the Court Ladies who could dance were exceedingly unkind to her. I shouldn't be surprised if they pinched her now and then. And the King was so vexed that a real Princess couldn't dance, that quite often he boxed her ears. Oh, he was a crab of a King! When Dianidra went near her mother, the Queen covered her face with her handkerchief and shrieked for her smelling-salts, and moaned: "A Princess who cannot dance will never marry. How disgraceful! How terrible! Unhappy me!" and a good bit more that I have not time to tell you.

So Dianidra used to wander off into the garden by herself and try to puzzle it out. She used to work it out with a paper and pencil like this: 2 steps plus 2 steps, and 1 bow plus 1 dip = the minuet. And 4 times 3 steps plus 1 turn, and 2 swings plus 1 slide = the Court glide. Then—then, because she never could put the puzzle together, she would throw herself down on the ground and weep, until the flowers thought surely that spring had come. And, dear hearts, have you guessed why? Don't think she was bewitched. Not a bit. Let me tell you the way of it. The proud old King and the weepy old Queen and the stupid old dancing-masters had been so busy telling the Princess how to dance that they all completely forgot to tell her what dancing was. So Dianidra had it all mixed up with her arithmetic and spelling lessons. And of course she couldn't dance, because the wisest person in the world couldn't dance with his head.

Things grew worse and worse, and pretty bad, I can tell you. And one day, after the King had been unusually crabbish, and the Queen most awfully weepish, and the Court Ladies outrageously crossish, Dianidra decided to run away. She waited until the gate-keeper was snoring, then she stood on her tippy-toes, turned the great golden key, and slipped out into the world. She ran and ran, down the King's