“Well, my dear,” said Aunt Gamboy, closing the door behind her, “and did you have a nice walk?”

It was the first time Aunt Gamboy had ever called her niece “My dear”. Lily couldn’t help feeling a little proud, because that was what the Amalgamated Princesses called each other, and though she didn’t like those ladies very much, they were grown up. They called each other “My dears” and children “Little dears”. Lily had always hated being called “Little dear”. So when Aunt Gamboy called her “My dear”, she was very glad. You see, the Amalgamated Princesses was a society of gentlewomen from the neighbouring kingdoms, who met together once a month at Mountainy Castle to talk. They had all been Princesses at one time of their lives but had been banished from their countries for disobeying regulations. Some of them had tied their hair up before they were twenty-one years old, some of them had neglected to keep it well keemed, some of them had worn the wrong clothes, and some of them had broken other laws of which you have not heard. But they were all alike in this, that they were no longer Princesses.

That was why they called themselves the Amalgamated Princesses. And they all acknowledged Aunt Gamboy, who really was a Princess, as their leader. So Lily knew that if Aunt Gamboy called her “My dear”, all these ladies would be sure to call her “My dear” too, and she would no longer have to bear their horrid patronage. That was why, although she had been so cross when she first heard Aunt Gamboy’s step on the stair, she turned to her now with a pleasant smile and said:

“Yes, thank you, Aunt.”

Aunt Gamboy sat down.

“What nasty weather we are having!” she said. Princess Lily felt prouder than ever, for though her Aunt had often talked to her before, she had never conversed with her like this. She sat up straight and patted her hair.

“Yes, isn’t it nasty?” she said primly. “Won’t you have some tea?”

“I’ve already had some, thank you, my dear,” said Aunt Gamboy, smirking to herself at the success of her little plan. And so the conversation went on, and all the time it was more like two Aunts conversing together than an Aunt talking to a niece. After a time a little page-boy came in and cleared up the tea things. Then he swept the Royal hearth, drew the curtains, and went away leaving Princess Lily and Aunt Gamboy sitting opposite each other over the bright, clean fire. They sat watching the flames in silence, and Princess Lily forgot all about the toad and only thought how nice it was to be quiet and peaceful and grown up, and how kind Aunt Gamboy was when you really got to know her.

The clock ticked the silence away.

A rustling sound, a mouse in the wainscot, or perhaps somebody scraping a chair in the room below; and behold, Aunt Gamboy gave a little tittering scream, yes she did, and hopped up on to her chair switching her skirts about her knees. What was the matter? Little Lily’s heart went thump, thump.

“Why, Aunt,” she cried, trembling to see her Aunt tremble so, “whatever is the matter?”

But Aunt Gamboy was panting (so it seemed to her niece) for want of breath. She began to gasp words out:

“I-h-thought-h-it-h-might-h-be-h-a-T—”

But then her teeth chattered, clack, clack, clack, like Spanish castanets, so loudly that she could not utter the last word at all. Now Lily had never looked inside her Aunt’s black book. If she had, she might have seen a paragraph beginning:

TEETH: Chatter, how to make (a) Others.

(b) Own.

And she would have noticed that (b) was underlined which would have been a very good thing for her. But, as it was, her teeth began to chatter too, for there is nothing more terrifying than to see someone else terrified, and she, too, jumped up on her chair and snatched at her skirts, though without knowing why. So there they stood, trembling and staring at each other from two chairs on either side of the fireplace.

Soon, however, Aunt Gamboy grew calmer. She climbed down and sat in her chair once more. So Princess Lily climbed down too, and again she asked her Aunt what was the matter. For a long time Aunt Gamboy made no reply. Then at last she went to Princess Lily and, throwing her arms round her neck, wept on her shoulder.

“Oh, my dear,” she cried, shuddering, “I thought I heard a T—” and she gulped a sob down and would not speak the word. Then suddenly it came into Lily’s mind that the thing her Aunt was so frightened of, the word she could not speak, was “Toad”. As the tide rushes into a pool of sand, rushed back to her now the memory of her afternoon’s walk and of the great grey- green shining thing with its bulging eyes. In a moment she became even more trembly than Aunt Gamboy. She shivered and shook so that the chair rattled beneath her, and her eyes opened themselves wide and stared as they had stared only once before, when she was a baby two days old. Her breath came faster and faster. Aunt Gamboy unlocked her arms from her niece’s neck and stood up. Whereat Princess Lily gave one long sigh and fell with her head over the arm of

the chair, like a doll; and Aunt Gamboy, looking her up and down without moving, uttered the word

“Successful!”

Then she sat down in her chair again to wait. “Weak,” she murmured to herself, “a weak child—easily upset. Hm—a weak child, a lonely father, and” (here Aunt Gamboy rose and

looked at herself in the glass) “Princess Gamboy, at your service,” she simpered, bowing to the image in the mirror, which bowed as politely back.

Little Lily, on her chair, began to stir her limbs. Aunt Gamboy arranged her face in front of the glass, knelt down beside her niece, and began to whisper to her the most pitiful words.

“My darling childie, are you better now?” she whispered. “Put your head in my lap, my sweet. There, there, then!” And Princess Lily opened her eyes and looked wonderingly up into her Aunt’s eyes. Then, when she saw who it was, a trustful little smile spread over her face and she closed her eyes again and pretended to sleep. Aunt Gamboy began to talk to her.

“Are youafraid of Toads, Aunt?” said Lily, opening her eyes. “Hush, dear, don’t think about it.”

“Yes, but are you?”

“Hush, hush, there’s a good child! There are not many things your old Aunt is afraid of.” “Yes, but, tell me, are you afraid of Toads?”

“Hush!”

“Aunt!” said the little Princess, beginning to cry: “You are afraid of them, you are, you are. Oh, what are they? What will they do to me if they catch me? Tell me!” And she began to shiver again. But Aunt Gamboy, who had just promised the King to help his daughter to conquer her fear, said nothing and looked away. She is frightened, thought Lily; if she, who is so strong and fearless, cannot protect me, then who will? And she wept for loneliness and fell to trembling again more than ever. Then she thought of her Father.

“Father told me there was nothing to fear,” she sobbed out. Aunt Gamboy said nothing.

“Father told me there was nothing to fear,” she cried again. “Yes, but—your Father—” said Aunt Gamboy and stopped. “Why should he tell it me if it wasn’t true?”

“—is—” went on Aunt Gamboy slowly, as though she hadn’t heard. She was thinking of something false to tell her niece.

“Oh, I’m so frightened. Need I sleep alone tonight?” wailed Lily.

“—a man,” finished Aunt Gamboy, “Your Father is a man, my child, and doesn’t understand.”

“Oh, why not?” cried Lily miserably. “I am going to tell him at once and ask if I can sleep in the room next to his tonight,” and she started running towards the door.

“Come here!” said Aunt Gamboy from her chair by the fire. “No. I am going to find the King.”

“Come here!”

“I want my Father!”

“Listen, Lily, do you love your Father?” “Yes.”

“Do you know that he is very tired and unhappy just now and very full of affairs? Are you going to trouble him still more and turn his hair grey? For shame! Besides, he is a man, and

couldn’t understand if you did tell him. He couldn’t help you. If you love him, you will say nothing about it.”

Poor little Lily was young enough to believe all this, to believe that it would be wrong to tell her own Father that she was trembly!

“I won’t tell him, Aunt,” she said. “May I come and sleep in the room next to yours tonight?”

“You’re a good girl. Of course you may. And we’ll both do everything we can to keep the—to keep them out. If we can’t” (and she shrugged her shoulders), “we can’t,—that is all.” Saying which Aunt Gamboy turned and left the room.

“If we can’t, we can’t,” the terrible words echoed in Princess Lily’s ears. How she longed to tell her Father everything. She remembered how wisely he had spoken to her on the way home from their walk and how he had told her to fear none of God’s creatures. Why, he had even laughed at the horrible thing, as if it was a joke. Perhaps it was a joke. How safe Lily would feel if she could hold his hand and tell him all about it. Surely it would be all right. She would do it. But no; for then she remembered her Aunt Gamboy’s words. How dreadful, if she were really to turn her father’s hair grey!

A cinder clicked in the grate, and Princess Lily started and remembered suddenly that she was alone in the room.

She had never feared to be alone before, but now she began to shiver and shake from head to foot. What was that noise? How tall Aunt Gamboy had looked just now standing on the chair—and how strange! What was that shadow moving on the wall? Princess Lily ran out of the room, turning her face away from the looking-glass as she passed, and fled downstairs to the Great Hall, where she could hear the Castle servants moving about. There she felt safer.

Meanwhile Aunt Gamboy was talking to the King in the Tea Hall:

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve done my best to help the child. Poor little tot! I told her there was nothing whatever to be frightened at. I think she has got over it already. I am sure you will find she’ll say no more about it to you. Best keep quiet about it yourself, my dear. By the way, in case she should feel at all nervous, I have arranged for her to sleep in the room next to mine tonight.

She said she would feel quite, quite safe there—quite, quitesafe.”

And the King, who knew nothing of what had happened upstairs, was much moved and full of love for Aunt Gamboy because of her kindness in helping his daughter in her trouble. He looked at her as she sat with her eyes fixed modestly on the floor, and, when he had been gazing for a little, she raised her head and looked steadily back at him. Then it was that the King positively started because of her likeness to Violet. Her eyes seemed to grow larger and more

transparent and to move nearer to him, and it was as though a voice spoke out of them saying “It is I, Violet, who am looking at you, my own darling: not dead, but hidden in here.” And, as he

looked, an agony of dreary longing sighed in the King’s lonely heart, like a wind over the sea at night, and with it came once more the dream and filled all the room, till the world and the Castle and the walls of the room grew shadowy and far away, and only the Queen was near. He leaned his head over the table nearer to Gamboy’s: “Most Gracious Lady,” he began whispering to her, “pardon the intrusion—pardon the intrusion—pardon the intrusion—er—if I am something too forward in my address, you must believe that it is your beauty which has stolen my manners.” “What a fool!” thought Aunt Gamboy, as she listened to what he was saying—“What a fool he

is! But he is rich, and a King, and I would like a Prince to my son or a Princess to my daughter.”

That night Princess Lily, lying in the room next to her Aunt’s, dreamed a dream. She seemed to be standing amid long green grasses by the margin of a willowed pool, waiting for her

Father. How happy she was; but suddenly the grass near her began to move, and she walked away, pretending not to hurry, for she knew something dreadful had seen her. As she came out on to the road, she looked back and saw a great green toad lolloping along behind her. She quickened her pace; the toad did the same. She broke into a run. Faster and faster lollopped on the toad, always drawing a little nearer, always staring at her with stony eyes. Oh dear, oh dear, how frightened she was in her dream! Princess Lily flew on and on towards the Palace and, looking back once, she saw that the toad had ceased lolloping and broken into a steady run, striding over the ground with long spidery legs. She was panting for breath. Would she reach home before her strength gave out? Ah, at last there was the door in front of her! She seized hold of the handle, but it had stuck fast and would not even rattle in her hand. She screamed “Help!” but no sound at all came out of her mouth, and she felt the toad’s warm breath blowing the hair about her neck, as she flung herself on the door and discovered that it had been open all the time, only needing a push. She tried to slam it behind her in the animal’s face, but it had caught on a hook in the wall and would not move. Sobbing for breath, she stumbled upstairs to her Aunt’s room and found her standing stock still behind the bed, smiling. Princess Lily ran round the bed to her and tried to speak, but could not for want of breath.

Lollopy-lump, lollopy-lump, lollopy-lump!

Poor little Lily dreamed she heard the toad hoisting itself up the stairs the way she had come. She seized her Aunt by the dress and pointed to the door, but tall, thin Aunt Gamboy only stood stock still and smiled and smiled; yet Princess Lily knew somehow that she understood it all, though she would do nothing. In despair she rushed out of the other door and down

Gamboy’s own staircase to the King’s study. If only she could get to her Father!

Lollopy-lump!

She heard the toad at the top of the stairs as she pushed open the study door. There, inside, was her Father standing with his arm in Aunt Gamboy’s, and Lily never stopped to

wonder how her Aunt had got there. “Father!” she shrieked (and this time her voice came), “the Toad, the Toad!” but His Majesty only burst out laughing, and when she called to him again she saw that he was very small and round like a little toy figure of indiarubber, and his head only came up to Gamboy’s waist. He went on giggling, and Aunt Gamboy stood and smiled and smiled, nor did either of them seem to understand that the toad was even now pushing open the door behind her. She stood—in her dream—frozen with terror, watching her little father open his mouth wider and wider, and louder and louder grew his laughing till it grumbled and muttered round the whole room, and she woke up to find herself alone in the dark with a thunderstorm going on outside.

At first she lay still, not daring to move or make a sound, full of the dream, but then, remembering where she was, she called out through the door to her Aunt:

“Auntie, Auntie, are you there? I’m frightened.” And Aunt Gamboy, lying awake next door and listening to the storm, heard little Lily call out to her; but she made no sound, as though she were asleep and hadn’t heard, she made no sound. Then Lily cried out again:

“Auntie, Auntie,” and again and again “Auntie, Auntie!” But Aunt Gamboy lay and smiled to herself in the dark and answered not a word. At last Lily felt ashamed of crying any more in case any other people in the Castle should hear her, and as she dared not get out of bed and find her way in the dark to her Aunt’s room, she lay trembling and starting at every little creak of the woodwork and every rumbling echo of the thunder, until the window-pane turned grey. Then, when the dawn was come, she felt safer again and so tired that she turned over and went straight off to sleep. But in the morning she woke tossing and tossing in the throes of a high

fever. And when someone came and stood by her bed, she thought in her delirium that the lady was her own dear Mother, of whose loving-kindness the King had so often spoken to her, and at once she held out both her hands to her, crying piteously:

“Oh Lady-Mother, my forehead is so hot!”

hoping and hoping that her Mother would stoop and comfort it with her darling cool palms.

But of course, Aunt Gamboy did nothing of the sort.