"Anne-marie, the King wants to hear you play!"

"The King? The real King?"

"Yes."

"Not a fairy-tale king?"

"No."

"The King who was ill when I had a birthday-cake long ago?"

"Yes."

"And that I made get well again?"

"Oh, did you, dear?" laughed Nancy. "I did not know that."

"I did it," said Anne-Marie, with deep and serious mien. "I made him get well. Do you remember the seven candles round my cake?"

"I heard of them. You were seven when you were at the Gartenhaus; and I was away from you." And Nancy sighed.

"And you know about the birthday wishes?" asked the eager Anne-Marie. "The Poetry says:

"The heart must be pure,
The Wish must be sure,
The blow must be one—
The magic is done!"

"What terrible lines!" said Nancy.

"FrÄulein did them, from the German," said Anne-Marie.

"What is the blow?"

"The blowing-out of the candles. You may only blow once. And 'the Wish must be sure.' You must not change about, and regret, and wish you hadn't. FrÄulein told me it would be safest to make a list of all my wishes beforehand. So I made a list days and days before my birthday. They were to be seven things—one for each candle. There was a white pony, and a kennel for Schopenhauer, and a steamer to go and fetch you home in, and a lovely dress for FrÄulein, and a gold watch for you, and something else for Elisabeth, and another dog for me, and to go to the theatre every day, and—"

"There seem to be more than seven things already," said Nancy.

"Well, they were most beautiful. Especially the pony and the steamer.... And then you wrote about the King."

"I remember," said Nancy.

"You said he was ill, and that he was your papa's King, and that he was good and forgave everybody: whole countries-full of bad people! And you wrote that I was to say a prayer, and ask God to make him well."

"I remember."

"Well, I didn't, I said to God: 'Wait a minute!' because next day was my birthday, and I had the cake with the seven Wishes. I thought first I would just give up the kennel, and wish once for the King to get well. So I did it, and blew out one candle; then I gave up the present for Elisabeth, and wished for the King again. Then I thought I could do without the dress for FrÄulein. And without the theatre.... And then I let the steamer and the pony go too. And I blew out all seven candles for the King!" Anne-Marie folded her hands in her lap. "So that's how I made him get well."

"How nice," said Nancy.

"And now I am going to see him, and to play to him," said Anne-Marie dreamily. "It is very strange." She raised her simple eyes to her mother. "Do you think I ought to tell him about my having saved him?"

"I think not," said Nancy. "It is much nicer to have saved him without his knowing it."

So Anne-Marie did not tell him.

... But he knew. "I know that he knew!" sobbed Anne-Marie in the evening of the great day, trembling with emotion in her mother's arms. "I saw it in the kindness of his eyes. And mother! mother! I think that was why he kissed me."