Part 15 (2/2)

'Don't you interrupt again, then. Now the real truth is that she'd like to be queen instead of you; she's ambitious, you know--that's what's the matter with her. And so she's got it into her head that if you were only out of the way, I should ask _her_ to be the next queen!'

Winifred could not say a word, she was so overcome by the idea of her doll's unkindness; and Archie took Ethelinda by the waist and brought her near her royal mistress as he said: 'Now you'll see how artful she is; she's coming to ask you if she may go out. Listen. ”Please, Your Gracious Majesty, may I go out for a little while?”'

'This is even better than if I spoke myself,' Ethelinda thought; 'he can talk for me, and I do believe I'm going to be quite wicked presently.'

'Am I to speak to her, Archie?' Winifred asked, feeling a little nervous.

'Of course you are. Go on; don't be silly; give her leave.'

'Certainly, Ethelinda, if you wish it,' replied Winifred, with a happy recollection of her mother's manner on somewhat similar occasions, 'but I should like you to be in to prayers.'

'A maid of honour isn't the same as a _housemaid_, you know,' said Archie; 'but never mind--she's off. _You_ don't see where she goes, of course.'

'Yes I do,' said Winifred.

'Ah, but not in the game; n.o.body does. She goes to the apothecary's--here's the apothecary.' And he caught hold of the jester, who thought helplessly, '_I'm_ being brought into it now; I wish he'd let me alone--I don't like it!' 'Well, so she says, ”Oh, if you please, Mr. Apothecary, I want some a.r.s.enic to kill the royal blackbeetles with; not much--a pound or two will be plenty.” So he takes down a jar (here Archie got up and fetched a big bottle of citrate of magnesia from a cupboard), 'and he weighs it out, and wraps it up, and gives it to her.

And he says, ”You'll mind and be very careful with it, my lady. The dose is one pinch in a teaspoonful of treacle to each blackbeetle, the last thing at night; but it oughtn't to be left about in places.” And so Lady Ethelinda takes it home and hides it.'

'I've bought some poison now,' thought Ethelinda, immensely delighted, 'I _am_ a wicked doll! How convenient it is to have it all done for one like this! I do hope he's going to make me give Winifred some of that stuff, to get her out of the way, and have the romance all to our two selves.'

'Now you and I,' Archie continued, 'haven't the least idea of all this.

But one day, the Court jester ('I was an apothecary just now,' thought the jester; 'it's really very confusing!')--the Court jester comes up, looking very grave, and sneaks of her. The reason of that is that he's angry with her because she never will have anything to do with him, and he says that he's seen her folding up a powder in paper and writing on it, and he thought I ought to be told about it.' ('This is awful,'

thought the jester. 'What will Ethelinda think of me for telling tales?

and what has come to Ethelinda? It's all that miserable Sausage-Glutton's doing--and I can't help myself!')

'Well, I'm very much surprised of course,' said Archie; '_any_ king would be--but I wait, and one day, when she has gone out for a holiday, the jester and I go to her desk and break it open.'

'Oh, Archie,' objected the poor little Queen in despair, 'isn't that rather _mean_ of you?'

'Now look here, Winnie, I can't have this sort of thing every minute.

For a gentleman, it might be rather mean, perhaps, but then I'm a king, and I've got a right to do it, and it's all for your sake, too--so you can't say anything. Besides, it's the jester does it; I only look on.

Well, and by-and-by,' said Archie, as he scribbled something laboriously on a piece of paper, 'by-and-by he finds _this_!'

And with imposing gravity he handed Winifred a folded paper, on which she read with real terror and grief the alarming words--'_Poisin for the Queen_!'

'There, what do you think of that?' he asked triumphantly; 'looks bad, doesn't it?'

'Perhaps,' suggested the Queen feebly, 'perhaps it was only in fun?'

'Fun--there's not much fun about her! Now the guard' (here he used the bewildered jester once more) 'arrests her. Do you want to ask the prisoner any questions?--you can if you like.'

'You--you didn't mean to poison me really, did you, Ethelinda dear?'

said Winifred, who was taking it all very seriously, as she took most things. 'Archie, do make her say something!'

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