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NOW you must be told that the King of that country had a daughter as lovely as the day, who had never laughed in all her life!
She was as sad and sorry as the mournful Bell that rings for a death, and so they called her the Passing Belle; it was a sort of joke. *
* The French country people call the Passing Bell La
Dolente, and this unhappy Princess they named La Belle
Dolente. If any child cannot understand this, she may
consult her nice French grammar, and her French and English
dictionary, and turn it over in her mind till next
Christmas.
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Now, as she was an only child, the ‘Passing Belle had been spoiled from her very cradle. Cakes, toys, diversions, such as playing at funerals, had been lavished on her, but she never, never smiled.
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They tried her with Punch and Judy, they tried her with pantomimes, they took her to the play, but there never came a smile on the pale lips of the Passing Belle.
She would not have laughed for a King’s ransom; nay, if you had ordered her off to instant execution, and laid her head on the block, you could not have wrung a smile from her!
The King, who had a strong sense of humour, was in despair. Finally he had a proclamation printed:—
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WHOEVER CAN MAKE
THE
PRINCESS
GIGGLE
SHALL WIN HER FOR
HIS BRIDE.
Cambrinus R.
But nobody came!
Every one thought it was hopeless to get a laugh from the Passing Belle. Then the King, who was a very religious man, determined to take her to the shrine of Saint Calixtus. Of course, if the Saint could make her smile, she would become a nun, and perhaps, in the long run, would have been as solemn and lugubrious as ever.
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