"What are you doing?" he asked her, with a smile.
"I am picking beans for the King's dinner," answered the little scullery-maid.
"How extremely kind of you!" exclaimed the King, who had always supposed that the beans for his dinner picked themselves. "Will you let me look at them?"
She held out her basket, and the King peeped inside and found it full of bright scarlet flowers.
"Are those beans?" asked the King in wonderment, and he thought he had never seen anything so charming before.
"I hope so," said the little scullery-maid with an anxious sigh, for she knew no more about it than the King and was dreadfully afraid of being scolded for picking the wrong thing. Indeed, she had hardly finished speaking when the angry voice of the chief cook called her from the back door; and away she scampered down the garden path.
Every one noticed how absent-minded the King was at dinner, that day. He talked even less than usual, and when the fifteenth course came round he turned reproachfully to the Prime Minister.
"I thought I was going to have beans for dinner," observed the King, in a disappointed tone.
"Your Majesty has just helped himself to beans," said the Prime Minister, when he had recovered from his surprise at the King's remark.