"I don't believe she's upstairs at all, mummy," said Ruby. "No, of course she can't be. We left her in the Palace—don't you remember? She's Queen now, you know?"
"Queen! Miss Heritage! Why, you don't mean to tell me you've been dreaming that too?"
"So have I, as far as that goes, mater," said Clarence. "If it was a dream, and not—not——"
"How could it be anything else? Besides, here we all are, exactly as we were!"
"We've got our cloaks and things on, though," said Ruby. "I know how it was! We've been brought here in the stork-car while we were fast asleep. We sat up ever so long waiting for it."
"It can't be! I won't believe anything so absurd. Draw the curtains, somebody, and pull up the blinds.... It's odd, but it certainly looks more like early morning than any other time. Clarence, go out and strike the gong. Perhaps the maids haven't finished dressing yet."
Clarence went out accordingly. The gong bellowed and boomed from the hall, but there was no sound of stirring above. "I say," he reported, "I've just looked into the dining-room, and all the chairs are upside down on the table. That looks rather as if we'd been away for a bit—what?"
"Clarence! You're not beginning to think that—that all that about our having been a Royal Family may be true?"
"Well, Mater," he said, "if we haven't been in Märchenland, where have we been? Oh yes, we've been Royalties right enough—and a pretty rotten job we made of it!"
At this time there was a deprecatory knock at the drawing-room door. "Mitchell!" cried her mistress, "don't you know better than to—?" However, it was not Mitchell that entered—but a person unknown—a respectable-looking elderly female, who seemed to have made a hasty toilette.