Now Charity might make slips in grammar and slap unoffending dolls, but the laundry was sacred to her. Once the pile of muslin was ironed and placed in the basket it was not to be tampered with. “You daren’t,” she said. Hazel walked into the other room, took the pink wrapper and slowly put it on. Her heart beat fast and her fingers trembled, but she fastened the dress at the throat and held it up about her. Entering the parlor she went to the chair in which King Solomon sat, and bowed low, dropping the pink dress so that it trailed upon the floor. Then she looked up into the king’s dark face. “Isn’t this a royal great train?” she said softly. King Solomon nodded. He was saying to himself, “You bet, my mother needn’t say she’s such a good little girl again!” The Queen of Sheba bowed once more. “What do I do next, Charity?” “You ask me questions.” “I can’t think of any;” and the queen, like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, courtesied again to help her think. “What did I have for dinner?” she said at last. “Myrrh and mint and jasper and honey and the honeycomb.” The queen looked up in admiration. “That’s a beautiful answer; how did you think of all those things? But is jasper something to eat?” King Solomon did not regard the question. “Ask me something else?” he demanded. “What--what--what did I have for breakfast?” The king stuck out his tongue derisively. “Can’t you think of a single thing, Hazel Tyler, but food?” Hazel felt her lack of originality. “Have you had pleasant weather this past week in Jerusalem?” she asked politely. “It has rained,” replied King Solomon, “for forty days and nights; and great was the fall thereof.” The king’s answers were so much more impressive than the queen’s questions that Hazel sought for first place. “Now I shall dance before the king,” she said, and began slowly advancing and receding before King Solomon’s throne, holding up the pink dress as she moved. She looked very pretty and graceful as she made her low courtesies and King Solomon’s eyes gleamed approbation. “If you like a me, as I like a you,” he began to sing and the Queen of Sheba stepped in a little livelier fashion toward the kitchen door. “’Cause I love you,” he went on, and the little queen danced before him over the door-sill and into the kitchen where she struck against the table and fell in a heap upon the floor. The singing stopped. Charity stooped to where Hazel sat, a frightened heap. She examined the pink gown. It had a black smudge on the back. “Have to be done all over again,” said Charity briefly. Hazel rose and took the dress off. Her lip quivered. “I’d best go home,” said Charity. “There ain’t nothing I can do. Oh, Hazel won’t you catch it!” “My mother never whips me,” said Hazel sharply. “She ain’t like mine,” said Charity. The bandanna was off King Solomon’s head and he crept out of the door and down the stairs to his home.