“Dear, dear!” said Wooden’s mother. “And such a nice lady as she was, too.”
“What makes you think that, Mrs. Noah?” asked Lady Grace. “Surely I should have heard of it if it had been true.”
“Well, perhaps you would, Lady Grace,” said Mrs. Noah. “Anyhow, she is alarmingly ill, and has appointed King Selim regent, to act in her place until she gets better. And if she dies, King Selim is to reign in her place. You see, the Queen having no children, naturally the only other royal person in Toyland has to reign instead of her.”
“Is that the law in Toyland?” asked Peggy.
Mrs. Noah looked at her affectionately. “Bless your pretty face, what questions you do ask, dear,” she said. “I don’t know nothing about the law, but it’s what King Selim says, and of course he knows, or else he wouldn’t say it.”
“Oh, no,” said Wooden decisively. “Some people don’t like him, but he isn’t as bad as that. Was it him that ordered the royal barge to meet us, Mrs. Noah?”
“Yes, it was,” said Mrs. Noah. “Now I must be getting back to my old man. He says there ain’t no flavour in his pipe unless I fill it for him.”
“I hope the Queen isn’t really dead,” said Wooden, when Mrs. Noah had left them. “That would indeed be a sad pity. Look, dear, you can see Dolltown now. It won’t be long before we are there now.”
The ark had turned a bend in the river, and Peggy could see across the flat plains a large town with an enormous tower standing in the middle of it.
“That is the House of Cards,” said Wooden, in answer to her question. “It stands in the middle of the market-place, and is thirteen stories high.”