Good republican that I was, I listened without reproof to her adoring fealty to Kings and Queens. Her love of Knights and tournaments was openly fostered at my hand. "If she should die out of this, her glorious imaginary world, she shall die happy," was my thought, "and if she lives to look back upon it with a woman's eyes, she shall remember it as a shining world in which her Daddy was a rough but kindly councillor, a mortal of whom no fairy need have fear." The circus was my daughter's royal tournament, an assemblage of all the kings and queens, knights and fairies of her story books. She hated the clowns but the parade of the warriors and their sovereign exalted her. The helmeted spearmen, the lithe charioteers, the hooded drivers sitting astride the heads of vast elephants were characters of the Arabian Nights, passing veritably before her eyes. The winged dancers of the spectacle came straight from the castle of Queen Mab, the pale acrobats were brothers to Hector and Achilles. As she watched them pass she gripped my hand as if to keep touch with reality, her little heart swollen with almost intolerable delight. "It makes me shiver," she whispered, and I understood. As the last horseman of the procession was passing, she asked faintly--"Will it come again, Poppie?" "Yes, it will come once more," I replied, recalling my own sense of loss when the Grand Entry was over. As the queen, haughty of glance, superb in her robe of silver once more neared us, indolently swaying to the movement of the elephant, who bore his housings of purple and gold with stately solemnity, my daughter's tiny body quivered with ecstasy and her beautiful eyes dilated with an intensity of admiration, of worship which made me sad as well as happy, and then just as the resplendent princess was passing for the last time, Mary Isabel rose in her place and waving a kiss to her liege lady cried out in tones of poignant love and despair, "Good-by, dear Queen!" and I, holding her tender palpitant figure in my arms, heard in that slender silver-sweet cry the lament of childhood, childhood whose dreams were passing never to return. * * * * * Chicago did not offer much by way of magnificence but Mary Isabel made the most of what we took her to see. The gold room of the hotel was a part of her imaginary kingdom, conceivably the home of royalty. Standing timidly at the door, she surveyed the golden chairs, the gorgeous ceiling and the deep-toned pictures with a gaze which absorbed every detail. At last she whispered, "Is this the Queen's room?" "Yes," I replied. "If the Queen should come to Chicago she would live here," and I comforted myself by saying, "You shall have your hour of wonder and romance, even at the expense of a prevarication." With a sigh she turned away, or rather permitted me to lead her away. "I'm glad I saw it," she said. "Will the Queen ever come to Chicago again?"