"What's the matter?" repeated the king, petulantly; "I daresay you care very much what's the matter; a pretty fellow you are to run off in that style. Here's Pepitia--the queen, I mean--fallen down and hurt herself." "Oh, poor thing!" said Amanda to Sophia; "she has hurt her nose, I think." "No, she hasn't hurt her nose, miss," said the queen, looking up from her velvet train, for she had lost her handkerchief, and was wiping her eyes on its satin lining; "and don't you call me 'thing' again, you saucy puss." "Lor, you needn't be so cross, Missis Queen," rejoined Amanda, making a mock curtsey. This retort produced a sharp altercation, in which several others readily joined, and a dozen young voices were to be heard all speaking at once. Their dispute, however, was not a very serious one, nor very difficult to arrange; so when they had all become good friends, and when the queen had left off crying, which she did on finding that her wounds extended no further than a grazed elbow, the king inquired what sport his companions had had. "Oh, capital; look here!" replied Alphonse, showing a small ivory cage containing about a score of butterflies. "Aren't they beauties?" The butterflies were unanimously pronounced to be fine ones, and the queen was expressing her admiration of them by a variety of exclamations, when a little boy pushed his way into the crowd, and said, "Oh! please queen, here's your crown; I found it among the bramble bushes." "Dear me," said Pepitia, "I quite forgot my crown!" "Why, I've lost mine too!" cried the king, clapping his hand to his head to feel for the crown, which ought to have been there but was not. "I've got the king's crown! I've got the king's crown!" cried another little fellow, running up from the other side of the dell. "What a bother the crowns are," said Philip. "Well, suppose we don't wear them any more to-day," suggested the queen. "No more we will," replied he; "and we had better take off our trains, for there is no running or doing anything in them, and then you won't go tumbling over yours, Pepitia; we will lay them down here, and we can put them on again when we are going home." So the trains, crowns, ball, and sceptre were put together in the corner of the dell, and then the king and the queen were ready for a good game of play with the rest of the troop. "Well, now, what shall we play at next? I'm tired of hunting butterflies," said Alphonse. A little voice suggested "Hunt the slipper." "Oh, yes! that's right; let's play at hunt the slipper," cried all the youngest, clapping their hands and jumping up and down. "I don't care for hunt the slipper," objected Amanda. "Besides, we have not got a slipper," said the queen, "and I'm sure none of you shall take your shoes off, or you will catch cold." "I wish we had a slipper," whimpered a little voice.