“What a talker you are, Bethikins, when once you are set going!” Aunt Alida laughed too. “We should have gone into the country for Easter; we usually do, but your Uncle Jim thought that you would like this Easter in town. We shall not be likely to spend the next one here. You will probably be in Virginia with us next Easter, at Old Point Comfort, or at the North Carolina mountains, or the Jersey coast; not in New York, anyway. So your uncle wants you to see the bright New York Easter this year. I hope you realize what a personage you are, small Beth, changing all our habits in this way!” “I--I think I feel sorry about it,” said Beth in a small voice. “You needn’t, dear; I shall enjoy it greatly,” said Mrs. Cortlandt hastily. “It doesn’t seem possible that the Shrove night ball is already five weeks past!” “The prince hasn’t gone home, has he?” asked Beth. “No, but he sails this week,” said Aunt Alida. “We dined with him at Mrs. Huntley’s last night. He asked most kindly after my four young people and said that he meant to see you again before he sailed. But he is scarcely allowed to rest from being entertained and seeing the country, so I’m not sure you will see him. He came here purposely to look into some aspects of our industrial conditions and his final visits to institutions of reform are crowding upon him thick and fast.” “He’s very nice, very,” said Beth with pensive emphasis. “It’s rather sad to think that we can’t see him again after he gets to England. Even if you went there, Aunt Alida, you couldn’t see him as if he weren’t ’way off in some palace, could you? And I’m pretty sure he would like Trump. He looks and acts like a person who would love a pony like Trump. I wish he could come here and go to see him before he goes back and sits in the shadow of the throne.” Natalie fairly shrieked at this speech. “The shadow of the throne! Beth, for pity’s sake, what makes you say such queer, fearfully funny things?” she gasped. “And who is going to sit in it, the prince or Trump?” Beth laughed. “Maybe it might be Trump, if the prince saw him and fell in love with him. I suppose you couldn’t refuse a prince your pony and be polite. It’s called being in the shadow of the throne in books,” she added. “You will see the prince when you go to England; ‘the shadow of the throne’ will lift long enough for that. We shall go over when Natalie is twenty; she will be presented at court then. But we’re likely to go before. The prince and his brothers and sisters rode ponies at your age; they are on the retired list, enjoying pasturage and comfort now, for the sake of past service. The prince is a famous rider; you were right in thinking he would be interested in Trump. Just a moment, children; I am called.” Aunt Alida shut her handkerchief into her book and went over to the telephone that stood on the small teakwood table near her couch; they were gathered in Aunt Alida’s sitting-room.