‘The light’s good enough now—and you see she’s——’
He stopped.
‘It must have been the light,’ he said, ‘she looks all right to-day.’
‘Of course she does, a precious,’ said the Queen.
But on Monday morning His Majesty was quite sure really that the Princess was rather plain, for a Princess. And when Sunday came, and the Princess had on her best robe and the cap with the little white ribbons in the frill, he rubbed his nose and said there was no doubt dress did make a great deal of difference. For the Princess was now as pretty as a new daisy.
The Princess was several years old before her mother could be got to see that it really was better for the child to wear plain clothes and a veil on week days. On Sundays, of course she could wear her best frock and a clean crown just like anybody else.
Of course nobody ever told the Princess how ugly she was. She wore a veil on week-days, and so did every one else in the palace, and she was never allowed to look in the glass except on Sundays, so that she had [p166 no idea that she was not as pretty all the week as she was on the first day of it. She grew up therefore quite contented. But the parents were in despair.
‘Because,’ said King Henry, ‘it’s high time she was married. We ought to choose a king to rule the realm—I have always looked forward to her marrying at twenty-one—and to our retiring on a modest competence to some nice little place in the country where we could have a few pigs.’
‘And a cow,’ said the Queen, wiping her eyes.
‘And a pony and trap,’ said the King.