In a second a remarkable change came over the old lady. She rose to her feet. Then she turned to Suzanna, her shoulders straight and her head held high. "My crown," she demanded. "Is that to be lifted from me in these the full years of my queenhood?" "I've never seen you with a crown on," said Suzanna. "Enough, serf!" cried the queen haughtily. "Procure me my crown." Suzanna looked about her. An old dried-up Christmas wreath hanging on a rafter attracted her attention. Quickly she procured it and held it out to Drusilla. "Here is your crown, Queen," she said. And then, her voice changing, she said: "You'd better let me put it on, Drusilla, it's liable to crumble if you're not careful. Lower your head, please." The old lady did so and Suzanna placed the crown upon the silver hair. "Now," said the old lady, "if you have sought me to gain advice, repeat your question, that I may answer in a manner worthy my exalted station." "Well," said Suzanna for the third time, "I want to know whether it's best to be honest or to suffer?" "What shall be your course if you are honest?" asked the queen. Suzanna pondered. "I think I'll tell daddy, perhaps tonight," she said at last, "that to wear the shoes will hurt my feelings dreadfully; that I tremble when I think of being the only girl in the drill without low shoes with two straps. Something like moccasins. If I tell daddy this, then I'll be honest." "And if you decide to suffer?" "Then I'll wear the shoes at the drill and from the time I put them on till the drill is over, I'll be full of pain. I'll know that everybody will be just looking at my feet, and I'll not enjoy the dance one bit." The queen knit her brows. Then her answer came: "Be not honest in the way you describe, neither suffer." "But, Drusilla," Suzanna objected, "I don't understand." "_And can you not be brave?_" asked the queen with a note of scorn in her voice. "Is it left to one who feels the time approaching when she will be deposed from her throne and all she holds dear, alone to have courage?" She looked straight into Suzanna's dark eyes. "Your father knows joy in thinking he has given you your heart's desire. Why, then, hurt him by telling him that the shoes are not your desire? Why not, with head held high, lead the dance you speak of, and forget shoes, and remember only the movement of the dance, the lilt of the music?" "Is that bravery?" asked Suzanna. "The greatest bravery," returned the queen, "will be to say to yourself, 'Am I so poor a maid that I cannot by the very beauty of my dancing keep the eyes of the watchers lifted clear above my shoes? For shoes, what are shoes? Leather and wood. Inanimate, unthinking _stuff_! They are not worth one heart pang, one moment of misery to me or mine. But _I, I am alive_. I can see and think and understand. I can go so joyously through the mazes of the dance that the watchers may forget their sordid cares.'"