"I'm sorry to hear it, my dear," said her Mother, "because I particularly wished Miss Heritage to get you on with your music; and, if that is impossible, I shall have to consider whether I can keep her at all."
"Oh, Mummy, you won't send her away? When you know I've never been good with anybody before, and never shall be, either!"
Queen Selina was quite alive to the advantages of retaining Daphne's services.
"Well, Ruby," she said, "I shall allow Miss Heritage to stay on, as your companion" (she had already seen her way to proposing a reduction of salary), "and she can make herself generally useful to me as well."
Ruby went dancing back to Daphne. "You're not to be my governess any more, Miss Heritage, dear," she announced, "because I shan't require one now. But I've got Mummy to let you stay on as companion. Aren't you glad?"
Daphne answered that she was—and she would certainly have been sorry to leave Märchenland quite so soon.
"And now tell me, Mr. Chamberlain—Baron Troitz, I mean," the Queen was saying. "What time do you dine here?"
"Whenever your Majesties please," was the reply.
"All the same to us," said the King affably. "No wish to put you out at all."
"Then with your permission, Sire, the Banquet will be served an hour hence in the Banqueting Hall."