Peggy felt dreadfully frightened at the moment at all the hubbub, and at the idea of poor Lady Grace being taken off to prison; but just as she was trying to think what she could do to stop it there was an unexpected diversion. Colonel Jim, the officer in charge of the Lifeguards standing by the royal carriage, rode forward with a clatter of harness and accoutrements, and said in a loud voice, “Unhand that lady!”
There was a moment’s pause. Then the Lord Chancellor said, “Colonel Jim, you are taking a great deal upon yourself. You know what the royal proclamation was. All Waxes are to be arrested and sent to prison.”
“What for?” asked Colonel Jim, with soldierly brevity.
“The general charge against them,” said the Lord Chancellor, “is giving themselves airs.”
“Has Lady Grace ever given herself airs?” asked Colonel Jim.
“No, that she never has,” said Wooden’s mother indignantly. “I will say this for her, Wax or no Wax, that a nicer-spoken or nicer-behaved lady never stept.”
“And she was a great favourite of Queen Rosebud’s, besides,” said Wooden. “She thought the world of her.”
And even Wooden’s aunt showed up well in the emergency. “If I’m to be Queen,” she said, “I shall have Lady Grace as my own lady-in-waiting. She shall put in my hairpins for me, which I never could do rightly myself. And how’s she to do that if she’s in prison?”
Colonel Jim rode back to his troop without saying another word. But his interference had been successful, for the Lord Chancellor said, “Under the circumstances, I will not have Lady Grace arrested now. She can come with us to the Palace, and we will see what the King has to say about it.”
Then Wooden and her mother and aunt, and Lady Grace and Peggy got into the royal carriage, and the Lord Chancellor and his suite got into two other carriages. Colonel Jim and his Life Guardsmen formed themselves on either side, and with a clash and a glitter, the little procession started. The wooden soldiers all presented arms, and made a way through for them, and they drove off the quay and into the streets of Dolltown.