“Fortunately Lady Lavinia Lee-Strange will be in the landau as well!” The Queen laid her cheek to her hands. “I all but died, dear Violet,” she crooned, “listening to an account of her Ancestor, who fell, fighting Scotland, at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh.” “These well-bred, but detestably insular women, how they bore one.” “They are not to be appraised by any ordinary standards. Crossing the state saloon while coming here what should I see, ma’am, but Lady Canon of Noon on her hands and knees (all fours!) peeping below the loose-covers of the chairs in order to examine the Gobelins-tapestries beneath....” “Oh----” “‘Absolutely authentic’ I said! as I passed on, leaving her looking like a pick-pocket caught in the act.” “I suppose she was told to make a quiet survey....” “Like their beagles and deer-hounds, that their Landseer so loved to paint, I fear the British character is, at bottom, _nothing_ if not rapacious!” “It’s said, I believe, to behold the Englishman at his _best_, one should watch him play at tip-and-run.” “You mean of course at cricket?” The Queen looked doubtful: She had retained of a cricket-match at Lord’s a memory of hatless giants waving wooden sticks. “I only wish it could have been a long engagement,” she abstrusely murmured, fastening her attention on the fountains whitely spurting in the gardens below. Valets in cotton-jackets and light blue aprons bearing baskets of crockery and _argenterie_, were making ready beneath the tall Tuba trees, a supper _buffet_ for the evening’s Ball. “Flap your wings, little bird O flap your wings----” A lad’s fresh voice, sweet as a robin’s, came piping up. “These wretched workpeople----! There’s not a peaceful corner,” the Queen complained, as her husband’s shape appeared at the door. He was followed by his first secretary--a simple commoner, yet, with the air, and manner, peculiar to the husband of a Countess. “Yes, Willie? I’ve a hundred head-aches. What is it?” “Both King Geo and Queen Glory, are wondering where you are.” “Oh, really, Willie?” “And dear Elsie’s asking after you too.” “Very likely,” the Queen returned with quiet complaisance, “but unfortunately, I have neither her energy, or,” she murmured with a slightly sardonic laugh, “her appetite!” The Countess of Tolga tittered. “She called for fried-eggs and butcher’s-meat, this morning, about the quarter before eight,” she averred. “An excellent augury for our dynasty,” the King declared, reposing the eyes of an adoring grandparent upon an alabaster head of a Boy attributed to Donatello. “She’s terribly foreign, Willie...! Imagine ham and eggs ...” the Queen dropped her face to her hand. “So long as the Royal-House----” The King broke off, turning gallantly to raise the Countess d’Omptyda, who had sunk with a gesture of exquisite allegiance to the floor. “Sir ... Sir!” she faltered in confusion, seeking with fervent lips her Sovereign’s hand. “What is she doing, Willie?”