When Princess Lily was between seven and eight years old, a curious thing happened in Mountainy Castle. It was all the more remarkable because, if there ever was anybody in the world who could be relied upon to behave in exactly the same way upon all occasions, morning and evening, year in year out, Sundays and Christmas Day included, that body was Aunt Gamboy. You always knew just what she was going to wear, just what she was going to say; for all you needed to do was to think carefully as she opened the door of her mouth, what thing you most hoped she wouldn’t wear, do, and say. And then she wore, did, and said it.

But now, very slowly as it seemed, she began to change.

She would still snap the heads off the Castle servants with her sharp tongue, she would still set the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord High Teller of the Other from Which (who had lately received the honourable title of Lord Tullywich) and all the other noble lords of the land by the ears with some ill-judged remark, she would still pore for hours over her black-bound book called Excerpta, and she would still feed the Amalgamated Princesses on aerated bread and desiccated cocoanut, but nevertheless there was a change. And with Aunt Gamboy any sort of change at all, even the tiniest one, was startling enough to everyone who knew her. She put on different clothes. She began to tie her hair with one piece of ribbon instead of three pieces of string. If she was talking to the King, or if she was talking to anyone else and the King was within hearing, her voice would grow a little softer and her tongue a little less sharp. Sometimes she was almost kind to him, on one occasion she even said “Thank you” instead of “Stuff!” and the next night she filled his hot-water bottle from her own kettle.

No doubt she had noticed what everyone else in the Castle had begun to see—that King Courtesy, in spite of little Lily and her pretty pranks, was a sad and lonely man. As he grew older and more tired he seemed to miss the Queen more and more, and at night, when his work was over and he sat in the firelight, he would sometimes fancy she was there beside him, till one of the flames, leaping higher than before, would light up all the room and remind him that he was alone. This would always be long after Princess Lily had gone to bed. At such times he would sit by the hearth far on into the night, his elbows upon his knees and his chin upon his hands, gazing, gazing into the fire, until it turned grey and then black and he was shivery with cold. Then he would trudge wearily up to bed and lie awake till morning, wondering why he had been born.

No doubt Aunt Gamboy had noticed all this.