'Oh, Ethelinda, darling, don't!' implored her Queen; 'don't go on talking in that dreadful way; I can't bear it. Archie, I must forgive her now!'

'Oh yes, forgive her,' he said with approval; 'queens shouldn't sulk or bear malice.'

'It's all right,' said Winifred briskly, as she dried her eyes; 'she's quite good again. Now let's play at something not quite so horrid!'

'When we've done with this, we will; but it isn't half over yet; there's all the execution to come. It's the fatal day now, the dismal scaffold is erected' (here he made a rough platform and a neat little block with the books), 'the sheriff is mounting guard over it' (and Archie propped up the unfortunate jester against a workbox so that he overlooked the scaffold); 'the trembling criminal is brought out amidst the groans of the populace (groan, Winnie, can't you?)'

'I shan't groan,' said Winnie, rebelliously; 'I'm a queen, not a populace. Archie, you won't really cut off her head, will you?'

'Don't be a little duffer,' said he; 'the end is to be a surprise, so I can't tell you what it is till it comes. You've heard of pardons arriving just in time, haven't you? Very well then. Only I don't say one will arrive here, you know, I only say, wait!'

'And now,' he went on, 'I'm not the King any longer, I'm the headsman; and—and I say, Winnie, perhaps you'd better hide your face now; a queen wouldn't look on at the execution, really; at least a nice queen wouldn't!'

So Winifred hid her face in her hands obediently, very glad to be spared even the pretence of an execution, and earnestly wishing Archie was near the end of this uncomfortable game.

But Archie was just beginning to enjoy himself: 'The wretched woman,' he announced with immense unction, 'is led tottering to the block, and then the headsman, very respectfully, cuts off some of her beautiful golden hair, so that it shouldn't get in his way.'

At this point I am sorry to say that Archie, in the wish to have everything as real as possible, actually did snip off a good part of Ethelinda's flossy curls. Luckily for him, his cousin was too conscientious and unsuspecting to peep through her fingers, and never imagined that the scissors she heard were really cutting anything—she even kept her eyes shut while Archie hunted about the room for something, which he found out at last, and which was a sword in a red tin scabbard.