"I don't know about any palace. I can't wait long. My farver told me to hurry."
The Queen said no more, and Freddie appeared to go to sleep. The night came on, and the Queen still sat by his side. It grew very late; her children had long since gone to bed, and even the King was asleep in his own apartments. The palace was silent, and there was scarcely a light anywhere in the great place except the light of a taper on a table in Freddie's room. The Queen was bending forward, watching the face on the pillow. The eyes were closed, the lips were together, and there was no sign of breathing. She knew that it could not be much longer; she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly.
A gentle tap upon the door aroused her. She rose and admitted Mr. Toby and Mr. Punch, Thomas the Inferior, and Mr. Hanlon.
"Quick, ma'am," said Mr. Hanlon. "There's not a minute to be lost. If you plase, I'll ask ye to put on yer bonnet in a hurry, ma'am. We're off on a journey, and the poor sick young lad's coming along with us. If you'll just be in a hurry with the bonnet, ma'am!"
The Queen, scarcely realizing what she was doing,
left the room, and went first to the nursery, where she bent over her three sleeping children and kissed them each, and murmured a loving good-bye above them, as if she were going to leave them; and for a long, long time she gazed at each rosy face, as if to fix it in her memory forever.
When she returned to the room, wearing a shawl over her head and shoulders, she was startled to see that the sick youth was sitting upright in a chair, thickly wrapped in blankets. His round childlike eyes were wide open, and to her surprise a faint smile seemed to hover about his lips.
She looked at the others. Each held, in his hand an empty hour-glass.
"Plase to get your hour-glass, ma'am," said Mr. Hanlon, "and Freddie's too."
Freddie's hour-glass was soon found in a drawer in the same room; the Queen's she brought in a moment from another room.