You think I can't see inside you, but I can. I know what
you've been thinking."
"What?" asked Jimmy.
"Oh, you know well enough," said the Princess. "You're thinking
about the bread and cheese that I changed into beef, and about
your secret fault. I say, let's all dress up and you be princes and
princesses too."
"To crown our hero," said Gerald, lifting a gold crown with a cross
on the top, "was the work of a moment." He put the crown on his
head, and added a collar of SS and a zone of sparkling emeralds,
which would not quite meet round his middle. He turned from
fixing it by an ingenious adaptation of his belt to find the others
already decked with diadems, necklaces, and rings.
"How splendid you look!" said the Princess, "and how I wish your
clothes were prettier. What ugly clothes people wear nowadays! A
hundred years ago "
Kathleen stood quite still with a diamond bracelet raised in her
hand.
"I say," she said. "The King and Queen?"
"What King and Queen?" asked the Princess.
"Your father and mother," your sorrowing parents, said Kathleen.
"They'll have waked up by now. Won't they be wanting to see you,
after a hundred years, you know?"
"Oh ah yes," said the Princess slowly. "I embraced my rejoicing
parents when I got the bread and cheese. They re having their
dinner. They won't expect me yet. Here," she added, hastily putting
a ruby bracelet on Kathleen's arm, "see how splendid that is!"
Kathleen would have been quite content to go on all day trying on
different jewels and looking at herself in the little silver-framed
mirror that the Princess took from one of the shelves, but the boys
were soon weary of this amusement.
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