‘I am Prince Treblo of this country,’ answered he.
‘I suppose you are the son of King Mumkie, then?’ said she.
‘Good gracious, no!’ said the Prince.
The Princess was just about to say, ‘Then whose son are you?’ when the old King burst into the room. He had evidently got up in a hurry, and he was only attired in his flowered dressing-gown.
‘My long-lost chee-yld!’ he exclaimed, as he threw himself into the stranger’s arms. ‘Araminta! Araminta! come along, it’s Treblo.’
And the Queen came rushing down in haste, as you may imagine. Over the rest of this affecting scene we will draw a curtain—that’s what they generally do with affecting scenes—in books, at least.
The Princess Ernalie easily perceived that she was a little—as the French say—de trop; that is, finding that ‘three was company and four none.’ So she left the room and went upstairs to comb her hair and wash her face and hands, and make herself look smart generally; for she thought that would be only right on the day on which the eldest son of the house came home—especially as he was very handsome.
Now it happened that as she was bending down to pick up her best shoes from under her toilet-table, one of them had gone a little far back, and as she drew it out she noticed that something lay behind the shoe, and she drew that out too. You may perhaps remember that she had picked up out of the road an eagle’s feather which Wopole had let fall as he hurried by with the eagle on his back. Well, then, it was this feather that she now drew out from under the toilet-table. It had lain there since she had first entered the room five years ago. Now this doesn’t say much for the cleanliness of the floors, but in those unsophisticated days they never thought of sweeping any hidden spot in the floor. This habit, curiously enough, survives even now among some people. However, to return to the Princess Ernalie.
When she picked up the feather she stood upright again and examined it carefully.