On reaching the Palace the bride and bridegroom were taken to a gilded drawing-room, and there left to talk together, while the guests filled up the time before the banquet by admiring the presents and calculating their cost. Ferdinand said, "Well, _that's_ over;" and the Princess said, "Yes,"--for this was their first opportunity of conversing alone. "You're a great deal better than I expected," said Ferdinand reassuringly. Indeed, in her straight dress sewn with seed-pearls and her coif of Dutch lace surmounted with a little crown of diamonds, the Princess looked quite beautiful; and he in his white satin suit, crossed with the blue ribbon of St. John Nepomuc, was the handsomest boy she had ever seen. "Besides," he added, "my Chancellor says you are hereditary High Admiral of the Ocean--it's in the marriage settlement; and that would make up for a lot. Where is it?" "The Ocean?" She felt very shy still. "I have never seen it, but I believe it's somewhere at the bottom of the garden." "Suppose we go and have a look at it?" She was about to say that she must ask leave of her governess, but he looked so masterful and independent that she hadn't the courage. It gave her quite a thrill as he took her hand and led her out through the low window to the great stone terrace. They passed down the terrace steps into a garden ablaze with tulip beds in geometrical patterns; at the foot ran a yew hedge, and beyond it, in a side-walk, they came upon a scullion boy chasing a sulphur-yellow butterfly. The Grand Duke forgot his fine manners, and dropped his bride's hand to join in the chase; but the boy no sooner caught sight of him than he fled with a cry of dismay and popped into an arbour. There, a minute later, the bride and bridegroom found him stooping over a churn and stirring with might and main. "What are you stirring, boy?" asked Ferdinand. "Praised be the Virgin!" said the boy, "I _believe_ it's an ice-pudding for the banquet. But they shouldn't have put the ice-puddings in the same arbour as the fireworks; for, if your Highness will allow me to say so, you can't expect old heads on young shoulders." "Are the fireworks in our honour too?" "Why, of course," the scullion answered; "everything is in your honour to-day." This simplified matters wonderfully. The children passed on through a gate in the garden wall and came upon a clearing beside a woodstack; and there stood a caravan with its shafts in the air. A woman sat on the tilt at the back, reading, and every now and then glancing towards two men engaged in deadly combat in the middle of the clearing, who shouted as they thrust at one another with long swords. The little Princess, who, except when driven in her state-coach to the Cathedral, had never before strayed outside the garden, turned very pale and caught at her husband's hand. But he stepped forward boldly. "Now yield thee, caitiff, or thine hour has come!" shouted one of the fighters and flourished his blade.