Page:The olive fairy book.djvu/281

 so loudly that she came running, thinking that the necklace must at least have been stolen.

‘Look here! look! cried the king, ‘haven’t we always longed for a son? And now heaven has sent us one!’

‘What do you mean?’ cried the queen. ‘Are you mad?’

‘Mad? no, I hope not,’ shouted the king, dancing in excitement round the open chest. ‘Come here, and look! Look what we’ve got instead of that necklace!’

Just then the baby let out a great crow of joy, as though he would like to jump up and dance with the king; and the queen gave a cry of surprise, and ran up and looked into the chest.

‘Oh!’ she gasped, as she looked at the baby, ‘what a darling! Where could he have come from?’

‘I’m sure I can’t say,’ said the king; ‘all I know is that we locked up a necklace in the chest, and when I unlocked it just now there was no necklace, but a baby, and as fine a baby as ever was seen.’

By this time the queen had the baby in her arms. ‘Oh, the blessed one!’ she cried, ‘fairer ornament for the bosom of a queen than any necklace that ever was wrought. Write,’ she continued, ‘write to our neighbour and say that we cannot come to his feast, for we have a feast of our own, and a baby of our own! Oh, happy day!’

So the visit was given up; and, in honour of the new baby, the bells of the city, and its guns, and its trumpets, and its people, small and great, had hardly any rest for a week; there was such a ringing, and banging, and blaring, and such fireworks, and feasting, and rejoicing, and merry-making, as had never been seen before.

A few years went by; and, as the king’s boy baby and his neighbour’s girl baby grew and throve, the two kings arranged that as soon as they were old enough they should marry; and so, with much signing of papers