I cannot remember all the names of the King’s little daughter, and indeed few can. The Archbishop who christened her says that he can, but he is so great and so deaf a dignitary that no one would think of asking him to prove it. They are all there, twelve pages of them, in the great book where are recorded the baptisms of all the Royal babies, so that you can look for yourself if none of the ones I can remember—Angelica Mary Delphine Violet Candida Pamelia Petronella Victoire Veronica Monica Anastasia Yvonne—happen to please you.

It was the fifth birthday of the little Princess, and there were to be great celebrations in her honor. Fireworks would blossom in the night sky, and in the gardens lanterns were hung like bubbles of colored light from white rose tree to red, while the great fountains would turn from pink to mauve, from mauve to azure, to amber, and to green, as they flung up slender stems and great spreading lacy fronds of water. Every one from the King down to the smallest kitchen-maid had new clothes for the occasion, and the Chief Cook had created a birthday cake iced with fairy grottoes and gardens of spun sugar, so huge and so heavy that the Princess’s ten pages in their new sky-blue and silver liveries, staggered under the weight of it.

The little Princess had a new gown of white satin, sewn so thickly with pearls that it was perfectly stiff, and stood as well without her as when she was inside it. It was standing by her bedside when the bells of the city awoke her on her birthday morning, together with her silver bath shaped like a great shell, and her nine lace petticoats, and her hoops to go over the petticoats, and her little white slippers on a cushion of cloth-of-silver, and her whalebone stays, and her cobweb stockings, and her ten Ladies-In-Waiting, Grand Duchesses every one. When she opened her blue eyes they all swept her the deepest curtsies, their skirts of bright brocade billowing up about them, and said together:

“Long Life and Happiness to Your Serene Highness!” and then the first Grand Duchess popped her out of bed and into her bath, where she got a great deal of soap in the Princess’s eyes while she conversed in a most respectful and edifying manner.

The second Grand Duchess, who was Lady-In-Waiting-In-Charge-Of-The-Imperial-Towel, was even more respectful, and nearly rubbed the Princess’s tiny button of a nose entirely off her face.

The third Grand Duchess brushed and combed the little duck tails of yellow silk that covered the Royal head; and oh, how she did pull!

The fourth Grand Duchess was Lady-In-Waiting-In-Charge-Of-The-Imperial-Shift, and as she was rather old and slow, although extremely noble, the Princess grew cold indeed before the shift covered up her little pink body.

The fifth Grand Duchess put on the rigid stays.

The sixth put on the stockings and slippers.

The seventh was very important and gave herself airs, for the nine lace petticoats were her concern.

The eighth Grand Duchess was Lady-In-Waiting-In-Charge-Of-The-Imperial-Hoops.

The ninth put on the little Princess the dress of satin and pearls, that glowed softly like moonlit drops of water.

And the tenth Grand Duchess, the oldest and ugliest and noblest and crossest and most respectful of them all, placed on the yellow head the little frosty crown of diamonds.

Then the Princess’s Father Confessor, a very noble Prince of the Church, dressed in violet from top to toe, came in between two little boys in lace, and said a long prayer in Latin. It was so long that, I am sorry to have to tell you, right in the middle the Princess yawned, so of course another long prayer had to be said to ask Heaven to overlook such shocking wickedness on the part of Her Highness.

Then the Chief-Steward-In-Attendance-On-The-Princess brought her breakfast—bread and milk in a silver porringer. The little Princess had hoped for strawberries, as it was her birthday, but the Chief Gardener was saving every strawberry in the Royal gardens for the great Birthday Banquet that was to be held that evening.

Then the little Princess went to say good morning to her Mother and Father, and this is the way she went.

First came two heralds in forest green, blowing on silver trumpets. Then came the Father Confessor and his little lace-covered boys. Then came the Ladies-In-Waiting in their bright brocades, with feathers in their powdered hair, and after each lady came a little black page to carry her handkerchief on a satin cushion. The ten pages of the Princess were next, and after them came the Royal Baby’s Own Regiment of Dragoons in white and scarlet. And last came four gigantic blacks wearing white loin cloths and enormous turbans of flamingo pink, and carrying a great canopy of cloth-of-silver fringed with pearls, and under this, very tiny, and looking, in her spreading gown, like a little white hollyhock out for a walk, came the Princess.

After she had curtsied, and kissed the hands of her Royal parents, her Father gave her a rope of milk-white pearls and her Mother gave her a ruby as big as a pigeon’s egg, both of which were instantly locked up in the Royal treasury. They then bestowed upon her, in addition to her other titles, that of Grand Duchess of Pinchpinchowitz, which took so long to do that when she had said thank you it was time for lunch, which was just the same as breakfast, except that this time the porringer was gold.

After lunch the Prime Minister read the Princess an illuminated Birthday Greeting from her loyal subjects, which ran along so that the Ladies-In-Waiting nearly yawned their heads off behind their painted fans, and the Princess had a nice little nap, and dreamed that there would be strawberries for supper.

But instead there was bread and milk in a porringer covered with turquoises and moonstones.

Then, as the younger Ladies-In-Waiting were thinking of the Gentlemen-Of-The-Court who would be waiting for them among the rose trees and yew hedges, to watch the colored water of the fountains and listen to the harps and flutes, and as the older Ladies-In-Waiting were thinking of comfortable seats out of a draught in the State Ball Room, and having the choicest morsels of roasted peacock and larks’ tongue pie and frozen nectarines, they popped the Princess into bed pretty promptly—indeed, an hour earlier than usual—and went off to celebrate her birthday.

The room in which the little Princess lay was as big as a church, and the great bed was as big as a chapel. Four carved posts as tall as palm trees in a tropic jungle, held a canopy of needlework where hunters rode and hounds gave chase and deer fled through dark forests. Below this lay the broad smooth expanse of silken sheet and counterpane, and in the midst, as little and alone as a bird in an empty sky, lay the King’s little daughter.

One large tear rolled down her round pink cheek, and then another. The long dull day had tired her, and the great dim room frightened her, and she wanted to see the fireworks she had heard her pages whispering about. She sat up among her lace pillows, and her tears went splash, splash, on the embroidered flowers and leaves of her coverlet.

One of the youngest angels happened to be leaning over the parapet of Paradise when the Princess began to cry, and he took in the situation instantly, and hurried off to his Heavenly playmates to tell them about it. “It is her birthday,” he said, “and no one has given her as much as a red apple or a white rose—only silly old rubies and pearls that she wasn’t even allowed to play marbles with! And now they have left her to weep in the dark while they dance and feast! I shall go down to her and sit by her bed till her tears are dry, and take her a white dream as a gift.”

“Oh, let me send a dream too!” cried another angel. “And let me!” “And let me!” So that by the time the little angel was ready to start to earth there were seven white dreams to be taken as birthday gifts from Heaven, and he had to weave a basket of moonbeams to carry them in.

That night the Princess dreamed that she was a daisy in a field, dancing delicately in the wind among other daisies as thick as the stars in the Milky Way. Feathery grasses danced with them, and yellow butterflies danced above, and the larks in the sky flung down cascades of lovely notes that scattered like spray on the joyous wind.

Some poor little girls were playing in the field. Their feet were bare and their faded frocks were torn, but they danced and sang too. There came a rumbling like thunder, and through a gap in the hawthorn hedge the children and the daisies saw the King’s little daughter driven past in her great scarlet coach drawn by eight dappled horses. They could see the little Princess sitting up very straight with her crinoline puffing about her and her crown on her head, and after she had passed all the children played that they were princesses, making daisy crowns for their heads, and hoops of brier boughs to hold out their limp little petticoats.