And now the story must hurry on, for there are many more things to be told yet, so many, that if you knew all that is still to happen you would say it had scarcely begun. Therefore you must try and imagine to yourself what took place in the next few months; how happy the Prince and Violet were together in spite of Gamboy’s ill-nature; how for a long time she refused to speak to either of them, and how unhappy this made Violet, though the Prince didn’t care a rap. But although she wouldn’t speak to them, neither would she leave them alone. You see, it would have been very little pleasure to her to sulk alone in her room and from her window see them walking and whispering together down in the garden. So she contrived to be always waiting round the corner, and as soon as they came near, she would get up from her chair, pull her skirts about her, and march away with her head in the air without looking at them. Or if they came into a room in the Castle, she was sure to be sitting there already, and she would get up and go out, slamming the door after her. This always made poor Violet feel unhappy for quite a long time, and even the Prince would feel uncomfortable, which was just what Princess Gamboy wanted. You may be surprised that she should still have wanted Violet to feel unhappy, when she loved her better than anything else in the world; but there are two ways of loving people: one is to like seeing them well and happy, which was Violet’s way of loving, and the other is to like to do what you tell them to, which was Gamboy’s way.

One day Princess Violet stopped Princess Gamboy and asked her why she was so angry with her, and Gamboy raised her eyebrows and answered coldly:

“My dear child, I am not in the least angry with you. Why should I be angry? I am only concerned for your own happiness. I am sure I hope you will always be as happy as you are now.” And she swept out of the room and left Violet crying. But the Prince frowned and said:

“Stuff!”

Which was quite right, because it was all lies from beginning to end, and he knew it.

And you must also imagine to yourself how the preparations went forward for the wedding, and how the Prince began to feel horribly nervous lest, in the excitement of the moment, he should find himself married to Gamboy instead of Violet. How dreadful that would have been! But remember that the two Princesses, in accordance with the law, were dressed exactly alike, and both wore their hair hanging loosely down their backs and well keemed. It might happen, you know. So at last in his perplexity the Prince went for advice to the Little Fat Podger. And when he had told him his trouble, the Little Fat Podger stood thinking for a while and then skipped away with three great grasshoppery, jiggery jumps, looking back over his shoulder and crying out at each step,

“Twiddlem
Twaddlem
Twenty-one."

How puzzled the poor Prince was, till suddenly he remembered having been told that the law about the Princesses only held good till their twenty-first birthday, and then he understood what the Dwarf meant. So he delayed the preparations for the wedding, in spite of his impatience, and arranged that they should be married on Violet’s twenty-first birthday, when she would be able to wear what she pleased.

At last, at last, the longed-for morning came, and at breakfast-time everybody waited to see what kind of clothes the two Princesses would wear. Of course they had both looked forward very much to the day when they would be able to wear what they pleased, and each of them, without saying a word to the other, had been secretly preparing her new dress for a month past. Yes, even Gamboy was pleased and excited about this, for, as she said, it was not the clothes themselves that mattered, but the liberty to choose them for yourself. By which she meant the liberty to make yourself look as ugly as you pleased.

Gamboy came down first, and everybody gasped to see how different she looked from yesterday. She had put on a narrow, straight, skimpy black dress, which was no wider at the bottom than it was at the top, so that she looked like an umbrella-stand; as for her hair, she had just taken hold of it with both hands, pulled it back as far as it would go over the top of her head, and tied it there with three pieces of string. But she had tied it so tightly that her eyes looked as though they were starting from her head with surprise. She did look funny. And when they saw Gamboy’s hair, all the ladies-in-waiting at the breakfast-table put down their knives and forks and let their bacon get cold, while they giggled and tittered to each other:

“She’s done it in a bun, she’s done it in a bun!”

“What’s that?” said Gamboy sharply. And everybody dropped their eyes and picked up their knives and forks and went on eating in silence. But then the door opened and Princess Violet came in! She was dressed in white from head to foot and her skirt fell spreading from her waist so lightly that she seemed to float on air. And her beautiful long hair was piled and piled on top of her head up against a marvellous comb, made of old silver, which rose above it at the back like a tower on the top of a rocky hill, or like St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. And once again everybody put down their knives and forks and stared. They stared at her in amazement, for yesterday she had been a pretty little girl and now it seemed she was a beautiful lady. How glad Prince Courtesy was that he had waited till her twenty-first birthday! And even the King, who had come downstairs in a bad temper, because he was to go to the wedding that day instead of going hunting, even the King smiled with delight, and rose and kissed his daughter and was most sweet-tempered all the rest of the day. No fear of mistaking them now, thought Courtesy to himself, and indeed it would be hard to imagine two more different people. Their very faces no longer looked the same, though of course they were exactly the same really; and if Princess Gamboy had cared, she could have made herself look as beautiful as her sister.

When Violet and Gamboy had opened all their parcels (for people receive more presents on their twenty-first birthday than on any other), there was a tremendous bustle throughout the Castle, and everybody, from the Lord High Teller of the Other from Which (who no longer had any work to do, but still went on drawing a high salary for it from the King’s Treasury) to the smallest and dirtiest of the stable boys, began to scrub himself up and put on his best clothes in readiness to start for the Church. At eleven o’clock every soul in the Castle started off in a long winding procession, some in chariots, some on horseback, some in sedan chairs, and some afoot, to go to the Church, which lay a mile off.

The wedding, too, you must imagine for yourself, and how Princess Gamboy, in her skimpy black dress, sat in the front row and glowered at the bride and bridegroom all the while it was going on. She would have frowned as well, only she had tied her hair back so tightly that she couldn’t move her forehead. But as the party came out of the Church, the Prince’s herald, who had been stationed at the door, put the Silver Trumpet to his lips and blew. And the sound that came out of the mouth of the trumpet was

Rooty tootity tootity tootity tootity too. Too tootity tootity tootity too. Rooty too. Rooty too. Rooty too-oo-oo.

And Gamboy, who was just passing him as he blew, started and smiled in spite of herself, and ran as best she could in her narrow dress to Violet and kissed her on the lips. But then the sound of the trumpet died away out of her ears, and she fell back ashamed of herself, glowering at everybody near her, and walked on in moody silence at the tail of the procession.

But when they reached the Castle, there was still another surprise in store for them. For the old King came up to the Prince and suddenly fell on his knees before him, offering him the hilt of his sword and saying:

“Homage to King Courtesy and Queen Violet!” Then Violet, who could not bear to see her father akneel, put her arms round his neck and raised him up, whereupon he explained that he and the Queen had decided that they were too old and too tired to reign any more, and they wished King Courtesy and his wife to govern the realm from now onwards. So Courtesy humbly thanked the old King for his kindness and vowed he would strive to be worthy of so great an honour. He and Violet took the oath there and then, and, as they mounted the throne, everybody in the Castle shouted aloud with one great shout:

“Long live King Courtesy and Queen Violet!” till the old stone walls echoed to the sound. And, as they mounted the throne, the Silver Trumpet rang out again, high above the shouting and the din:

Rooty tootity tootity tootity tootity too. Too tootity tootity tootity too. Rooty too. Rooty too. Rooty too-oo-oo.

and then died slowly away, while Princess Gamboy walked, as in a dream, to the foot of the throne and bowed her head, doing homage to the King and to her sister, the Queen.

That night lights blazed from every window in the Castle, so that far away on the hills the shepherds, gathered around their fires, saw three unbroken rows of little twinkling lights like stars. And they took off their caps, crying:

“Long live the King and Queen!”

Nor did they know that it was a new King and Queen they were hailing.

But inside the Castle a great ball was afoot, with Japanese lanterns in the courtyard, and strawberries and peacocks for supper, and the Great Throne Hall blazing with candles. All the while the Little Fat Podger danced madly in and out of the throng, leaping higher and higher: “Up—up—up—and again!” he shrieked and turned two somersaults in the air, because Violet was happy. Nor was the new Queen herself too dignified to dance a little dance of her own in the centre of the hall, while everybody looked on. And when she had finished everyone applauded clamorously, not because she was Queen, but because she danced like a leaf in the wind. Everyone, that is, except Princess Gamboy. She sat alone and aloof at a corner of the supper- table, eating, eating, eating, and drinking, drinking, drinking. She had not even changed her clothes. And all the time she grew more and more jealous of the Prince and spiteful towards everybody; for this was not the kind of music that made her dream.