‘Very well,’ answered Jill, laughing; and there was silence once more.
Jill looked very pretty as she sat there by the window, working away at her embroidery in the frame; and Babs congratulated herself, with a glow of satisfaction, on having made her a princess in her fairy kingdom. It was so nice of Jill, she reflected, to behave exactly like a princess, and to sit at the window of her lonely turret making tapestry, to while away the time until her prince should come thundering over the drawbridge below. Jill’s prince had not come yet, so of course she would have to go on working by the window till he did; she deserved an extra nice prince too, and Babs sighed as she remembered that she had not been able to find her any sort of a prince so far.
‘It’s a pity, isn’t it, that Dr. Hurst had to be enchanted again so soon?’ she murmured aloud.
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,’ said the princess, from the window.
‘You see,’ continued Babs, solemnly, ‘he began by being a beast; then I disenchanted him and made him into a handsome and gallant young prince; and after that he was so horrid to Jean and Angela in the quarantine that I had to turn him out of my kingdom, and make him wander over the earth once more in the shape of a beast.’
‘Oh,’ said Jill, bending rather closely over the embroidery frame. ‘Let me see, what kingdom was that?’
‘My kingdom,’ answered Barbara, in an important tone. Then she realised that Jill did not know about her kingdom. ‘I’ve never told any one before,’ she went on doubtfully. ‘If I tell you, Jill, will you promise not to laugh?’
Jill promised, and worked on steadily at her embroidery while the small voice from the bed painted her the fairy kingdom she had never described to any one before.
‘And so,’ concluded Barbara, with a sigh, ‘I can’t make it come right, because now there’s a princess without a prince. Do you mind waiting until I find you a prince, Jill?’
‘Not at all,’ answered Jill, turning to the light rather abruptly, and taking quite a long time to choose between two shades of silk.