"What is the matter?" cried Alphonse, running up breathless.
"What's the matter?" repeated the king, petulantly; "I daresay you care
very much what's the matter; a pretty fellow you are to run off in that
style. Here's Pepitia--the queen, I mean--fallen down and hurt herself."
"Oh, poor thing!" said Amanda to Sophia; "she has hurt her nose, I
think."
"No, she hasn't hurt her nose, miss," said the queen, looking up from
her velvet train, for she had lost her handkerchief, and was wiping her
eyes on its satin lining; "and don't you call me 'thing' again, you
saucy puss."
"Lor, you needn't be so cross, Missis Queen," rejoined Amanda, making a
mock curtsey.
This retort produced a sharp altercation, in which several others
readily joined, and a dozen young voices were to be heard all speaking
at once. Their dispute, however, was not a very serious one, nor very
difficult to arrange; so when they had all become good friends, and when
the queen had left off crying, which she did on finding that her wounds
extended no further than a grazed elbow, the king inquired what sport
his companions had had.
"Oh, capital; look here!" replied Alphonse, showing a small ivory cage
containing about a score of butterflies. "Aren't they beauties?"
The butterflies were unanimously pronounced to be fine ones, and the
queen was expressing her admiration of them by a variety of
exclamations, when a little boy pushed his way into the crowd, and said,
"Oh! please queen, here's your crown; I found it among the bramble
bushes.
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