"'I can't eat it,' said the queen, looking ruefully at the honey-pot. "'No wonder!' retorted the king. 'You've just eaten your breakfast--two turkey eggs, and three anchovies.' "'Oh! that's not it!' sobbed her majesty. 'It's my child, my child!' "'Well, what's the matter with your child? She's neither up the chimney nor down the draw-well. Just hear her laughing.' Yet the king could not help a sigh, which he tried to turn into a cough, saying, "'It is a good thing to be light-hearted, I am sure, whether she be ours or not.' "'It is a bad thing to be light-headed,' answered the queen, looking with prophetic soul, far into the future. "''Tis a good thing to be light-handed,' said the king. "''Tis a bad thing to be light-fingered,' answered the queen. "''Tis a good thing to be light-footed,' said the king. "''Tis a bad thing,' began the queen; but the king interrupted her. "'In fact,' said he, with the tone of one who concludes an argument in which he has had only imaginary opponents, and in which, therefore, he has come off triumphant--'in fact, it is a good thing altogether to be light-bodied.' "'But it is a bad thing altogether to be light-minded,' retorted the queen, who was beginning to lose her temper. "This last answer quite discomfited his majesty, who turned on his heel, and betook himself to his counting-house again. But he was not halfway towards it, when the voice of his queen overtook him: "'And it's a bad thing to be light-haired,' screamed she, determined to have more last words, now that her spirit was roused. "The queen's hair was black as night; and the king's had been, and his daughter's was, golden as morning. But it was not this reflection on his hair that troubled him; it was the double use of the word _light_. For the king hated all witticisms, and punning especially. And besides he could not tell whether the queen meant light-_haired_ or light-_heired_; for why might she not aspirate her vowels when she was ex-asperated herself?" "Now, really," interrupted the clergyman, "I must protest. Mr. Smith, you bury us under an avalanche of puns, and, I must say, not very good ones. Now, the story, though humorous, is not of the kind to admit of such fanciful embellishment. It reminds one rather of a burlesque at a theatre--the lowest thing, from a literary point of view, to be found." "I submit," was all I could answer; for I feared that he was right. The passage, as it now stands, is not nearly so bad as it was then, though, I confess, it is still bad enough. "I think," said Mrs. Armstrong, "since criticism is the order of the evening, and Mr. Smith is so kind as not to mind it, that he makes the king and queen too silly. It takes away from the reality." "Right too, my dear madam," I answered. "The reality of a fairy-tale?" said Mrs. Cathcart, as if asking a question of herself.