‘I like you,’ said Belinda softly. Then she read the little bit of print underneath.
Prince Bellamant, aged twenty-four. Wants Princess who doesn’t object to a christening curse. Nature of curse only revealed in the strictest confidence. Good tempered. Comfortably off. Quiet habits. No relations.
‘Poor dear,’ said the Princess. ‘I wonder what the curse is! I’m sure I shouldn’t mind!’
The blue dusk of evening was deepening in the garden outside. The Princess rang for the lamp and went to draw the curtain. There was a rustle and a faint high squeak—and something black flopped on to the floor and fluttered there.
‘Oh—it’s a bat,’ cried the Princess, as the lamp came in. ‘I don’t like bats.’
‘Let me fetch a dust-pan and brush and sweep the nasty thing away,’ said the parlourmaid.
‘No, no,’ said Belinda, ‘it’s hurt, poor dear,’ and though she hated bats she picked it up. It was horribly cold to touch, one wing dragged loosely. ‘You can go, Jane,’ said the Princess to the parlourmaid.
Then she got a big velvet-covered box [p169 that had had chocolate in it, and put some cotton wool in it and said to the Bat—
‘You poor dear, is that comfortable?’ and the Bat said:
‘Quite, thanks.’