When they reached the Queen’s Garden, the Dwarf pointed to a tall, dark yew-hedge, which looked very quiet and sleepy in the sunlight.

“You see that hedge?” he cried. “Yes,” said the Prince.

“Well,” said the Dwarf, “the ladies are walking behind there. Good-bye!” And he suddenly gave a hop and a skip and a hop and a jump away from the Prince, murmuring busily to himself as he did so. “One, two, three, and ON to it.”

“Hi!” shouted the Prince.

At this the Little Fat Podger, poised on one leg, looked back over his shoulder and sang a song:

“Princesses, Princesses,
Identical dresses,
And faces as like as peas—"

and he would have been off again, had not the Prince cried out appealingly that he might at least have told him the ladies' names. At that he twirled right round on his toe, and, after a pause, gave a leap back in the Prince’s direction, saying as he landed on both feet,

“Take Violetta.”

Then he stood quite still and nodded twice very wisely, saying as he nodded,

“Much better, much better.”

Then he took another leap towards the Prince, balanced on one foot, and shouted out quite loud,

“If you can get her.”

Then he took another leap, landed right beside the Prince, stretched up on tiptoe, beckoned to him to bend his head down, and, seizing the Prince’s hair in both hands, put his lips to his ear and whispered sharply,

“Without Gambetta.”

At which the Little Fat Podger let go the Prince’s head and danced oddly away, murmuring to himself, “To the side, to the side, point, point, point. To the side, to the side, point, point, point," and so vanished into the Castle.

The poor Prince was very much bewildered by all this, and he did feel shy as he tiptoed across the wide green lawn which lay between him and the hedge. But when he went round the hedge, he found to his surprise that there was only one Princess there. She was sitting reading.

“This must be Violetta,” he thought, for she looked very beautiful. So he went up to her, and kneeling on one knee, said humbly:

“Most Gracious Lady, pardon the intrusion of one who is at yet a stranger to you. If I am something too forward in my address, you must believe that it is your beauty which has stolen my manners.”

But Princess Gamboy (for it was she) looked up from her book and said:

“Stuff!”

The poor Prince was so taken aback that he hadn’t a word to say. He didn’t know whether to get up or stay on his knees. At last, as he was not very clever, he said the same thing over again:

“Most Gracious Lady, pardon the intrusion of one who is as yet a stranger to you. If I am something too forward in my address, you must believe that it is your beauty which has stolen my manners.”

Princess Gamboy went on reading.

“—M—which has—er—stolen my manners,” repeated the Prince nervously. “Will you not vouchsafe—”

Princess Gamboy looked up and interrupted him:

“If my beauty has stolen your manners, young man, I should have thought the less said about it the better.” And she got up, slammed her book, tucked it under her arm, and walked off.

In a little while Princess Violet came round the hedge to look for her sister. But the Prince, who thought it was Princess Gamboy come back again, pretended not to see her. She recognized him at once as the Silver Prince who had ridden up to the gate on horseback. So she sat down on Gamboy’s chair and waited for him to speak. But as he continued to stand still with his face turned away from her, at last she rose and went to him, saying kindly:

“Most Gracious Prince, I fear you are weary after your long journey. Will you not come into the Castle and there rest yourself, after you have eaten and drunk your fill?”

“Ah, Lady,” said Prince Courtesy sorrowfully, “that is kind of you: but how can I tell that even as you have just now changed from ungentle to kind, you will not change back again from kind to ungentle? Nay, I had rather be left alone.” And he shook his head sorrowfully.

How politely they both talked to one another, using much longer words than they did at any other time! Wasn’t it funny!

“I do not understand you, Prince,” said Violet, “I change? How changed, when until now you have never seen me?”

“Five minutes ago—” began the Prince.

“I was with my Mother in the Castle,” she said. But then the Prince suddenly remembered how the Dwarf had sung,

“Princesses, Princesses,
Identical dresses,
And faces as like as peas—"

Yes, faces, he thought to himself, faces as like as peas, oh, faces to be sure—but most certainly nothing else.

“I am sorry,” he said humbly, “I thought you were Princess Gamboy.” And he knelt and kissed Princess Violet’s hand and rose and went with her into the Castle.

From that moment began one of the strangest stories that could possibly be imagined. The Prince stayed on at Mountainy Castle, and, of course, he and Princess Violet grew quickly fonder of one another. It was only at first that he actually used to mistake Violet for Gamboy and Gamboy for Violet. That was only at first, because very soon he knew quite well which was which, without having to send a page for the Lord High Teller. Nobody else could ever be quite sure, but Prince Courtesy became of fond of Violet that HE KNEW. But although, whenever he saw Gamboy, he knew she was Gamboy, that didn’t make any difference to the fact that he saw very much too much of her. It was the one thing about which he and Violet could not agree. For while Violet still loved her sister more than anything else in the world, more even than Prince Courtesy himself, the Prince—well, he just didn’t love her at all. She was so hopelessly in the way. It would take much too long to tell how she never left them alone; how, when Violet was dancing to the Prince in the West Corner of the Queen’s Garden, she would make sarcastic remarks in a loud voice about people who wasted their time jumping about like toads; how, when the Prince thanked Violet for dancing so beautifully and made pretty speeches about her little feet, Gamboy would get up from her chair, slam her book, and say, “Little feet, indeed. Tut!"— how, in fact, she always managed somehow to spoil their happiness together. But one fine day the Prince, who had brought some musicians along with him in his train, ordered them after supper to come out into the West Corner of the Queen’s Garden.

First of all out came a man carrying a little fiddle, then came another man with another little fiddle, then came another man with a fiddle a little bigger than these, then another man with a fiddle nearly as big as himself, but lastly a fifth man came with a fiddle so simply enormous that he could hardly carry it. And the men were all dressed in pink, with white frills round their wrists and necks, and yellow stockings, and curly grey wigs on their heads. They sat down and scraped their fiddles once or twice with their fiddling-sticks. Meanwhile Gamboy was grumbling surlily at not being left to read in peace, because of the deafening noise they were making. Prince Courtesy would have liked to say, “Well, go away then!” but he knew Violet wouldn’t like it, so he kept silence. But at last the musicians stopped scraping.

There they all sat still, in the yellow sunlight, with the dark yew-hedge behind them.

Then the first man began to play a little tune on his little fiddle, and before he had got very far the second man began to play the same tune on his little fiddle, but the first man didn’t stop playing his little tune—oh no, he went straight on; and then the third man began to play the same tune on his fiddle, and the fourth man on his, and lastly the fifth man began that very same tune on his great big fiddle, so low down that it sounded like growling thunder.

Now Violet and Gamboy had never heard anything like this before, and, as the music played on, they dreamed that the sounds coming from the five fiddles were five shining silk threads, each of a different colour, twisting and twining and curling and winding in and out and over and under one another in a marvellous pattern and always moving on and on and on, till Violet thought, “It’s better than dancing,” and Gamboy thought—well, as a matter of fact she thought of nothing at all. But the curious thing was that when the music stopped, Princess Gamboy sat on in silence with her hands folded across her lap, staring away into nothing. And all the rest of that evening she never spoke one harsh word. Later on the three of them wandered round the Queen’s Garden, just as the sun was setting and a great golden moon rising out of the mist opposite. And the Prince put his arm through Violet’s and Violet put her arm through

Gamboy’s and they were all three of them so quiet and happy that they never forgot that evening all the rest of their lives. Sometimes, when they were very miserable and hot and tired, the memory of it would suddenly come back to them like a cool breeze blowing on their foreheads and make them happy again.

The next morning the Prince, who had grown very friendly with the Little Fat Podger, told him about this and asked him what he thought it might mean.

“Music hath charms,” said the Dwarf. “Harmony, you know, harmony—Form versus Chaos—Light v. Darkness—and the Dominant Seventh. It’s all one.”

The Prince thought this was rather foolish. It was advice he wanted, and he now asked the Dwarf point blank how he might keep Gamboy for ever in her gentle mood.

“Prince,” said the Dwarf, planting his legs very wide apart, “you are a nin-a-kin.” And he opened his legs wider and wider (for he had very few bones), and slid down till they stuck out flat on the floor each side of him. Then he jumped up and slapped both his thighs one after the other very quickly, saying:

“One, two!"

“What about the Silver Trumpet?” he shouted, and he slapped both the Prince’s knees, “One, Two!” so that the poor Prince howled with surprise. But before he recovered himself, the Little Fat Podger was gone.

What does he mean? thought Courtesy. Then he remembered the Silver Trumpet hanging from his baldric, the one he had blown so boldly at the Castle gate.

That afternoon Gamboy was at her old tricks again. But just as she was beginning to say something nasty and sneery about Princes, Prince Courtesy took the Silver Trumpet from his baldric and blew.

“Your Princes,” Gamboy was saying, speaking half through her nose, “are—” (Prince Courtesy reached out his hand towards the trumpet.)

“—very fine gentlemen, no doubt—”

(Prince Courtesy’s fingers closed on the handle.) “—but whether that’s a—”

(The trumpet was at Prince Courtesy’s lips.) “compliment—

Rooty tootity tootity tootity tootity too.

Princess Gamboy gulped back the rest of the words and turned her nose down.

Too tootity tootity tootity tootity too.

Princess Gamboy’s mouth shut with a snap,

Rooty too. Rooty too. Rooty too.

Princess Gamboy folded her hands in her lap and leaned back in the chair, staring far and far away into nothingness. She was dreaming. And oh—she was silent!

After that Violet and the Prince were much happier, for the Prince had only to blow his trumpet to bring them peace and the quiet they loved. Nevertheless their troubles were by no means at an end, nor was Gamboy subdued. As soon as the drowsy dream brought upon her by the Silver Trumpet began to fade, she would open her mouth and start carping and sneering more than ever. So that the Prince would have to put the trumpet to his lips and blow again; and it was a tiresome thing to be continually making this odd noise all over the Castle grounds. Moreover, if by any chance he left the trumpet behind in his room one day, or if the mouth-piece was clogged up so that it wouldn’t blow, they were at the mercy of Gamboy’s horrid tongue. At such times she seemed to be bitterer than ever, not because she had anything to complain of, but as though she were making up for all the time she had lost beneath the spell of the Silver Trumpet. Thus, although Violet and the Prince could be sure of any number of peaceful half-hours together, yet in a way matters grew worse and worse, for Gamboy had become so sharp and ill-natured that

she and the Prince frequently quarreled openly. After these quarrels the Prince would always feel very worried and miserable; “She is Violet’s beloved sister,” he would say to himself, thinking sadly of the loud, unkind voice in which he had reproved her and the many things he wished he had not said, because they had hurt poor Violet’s tender heart.

At last the Prince asked Violet if she would marry him and be his Queen.

She told him to wait until the following day, when she would give him her answer. Now she was certain in her own mind that the answer would be “Yes”; but all the same she wanted to tell somebody and pretend to ask their advice. So she set out to look for Gamboy, who had been left indoors. But on the way she met the Dwarf, and he was such a very great friend of hers that she decided to tell him.

So she told him.

“Hooray!” shouted the Little Fat Podger. “The answer is in the affirmative,” and he

seized hold of Princess Violet’s knees, for he couldn’t reach any higher, and insisted on teaching her there and then a new dance, shrieking excitedly, “To the right, step, step. To the left, step, step. Behind, to the side, in front, hop."

They danced up and down together.

“Now I am going to tell Gamboy,” said Violet breathlessly. “What’s that?” said the Dwarf, stopping short.

“I am going to tell Gamboy,” said Violet. “Don’t!” said the Dwarf.

“Shall!” said Violet, still laughing. “Don’t!” said the Dwarf.

“Shall,” said the Princess, jumping up and down.

Now the Little Fat Podger hated Gamboy as much as he loved Violet, and it was a source of great sorrow to him that Violet could be so fond of anybody so disagreeable. He longed to separate them. Suddenly he changed his mind.

“Yes, do!” he said, “and, when you have told her, listen very carefully to what she says.” That Dwarf was a wise little fellow. He knew a hawk from a handsaw, and, what is more,

he knew Princess Gamboy’s heart inside out.

So Violet went dancing off into the Castle;

“Create a sensation of glory
All in the land of Judea,"

she sang, till she came to where Princess Gamboy was. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, casting up the accounts of the Amalgamated Princesses' Society.

“Gamboy, dear,” she began shyly—“Gamboy, darling—I say, ‘Betta!” And she went on and told her everything. But, when she had finished, Princess Gamboy behaved in the most unexpected way; for she got up from her chair, tucked her book under one arm, and with her hands clasped behind her back began to stride up and down the room in silence, frowning angrily. At last she stopped and turned sharply to Violet.

“Listen, Violet,” she said, “I hate that Prince, and if you marry him, I’ll have no more to do with you.”

But, ‘Betta!” said Violet, opening her eyes wide with astonishment, “why do you hate him?”

“Because,” answered Gamboy, “because—what’s that to you, Miss? I hate him. Now— which of us are you going to choose?”

Violet began to cry, “Oh, ‘Betta, ‘Betta,” she said, “why won’t you understand? He loves me. And—and—I love him.”

“Understand!” snapped Gamboy. “Stuff! Don’t you imagine that love butters any parsnips. He said he loved you. Oh yes, he said he loved you. Of course he did—they all say that. Do you know what he really loves? Himself. You admire him so much that when he looks into your silly great eyes he thinks himself the finest fellow that ever was. That’s what he loves. They may say what they like of little Gamboy, but she’s no fool. Oh no, my dears, she’s no fool!”

Princess Gamboy was so much pleased with her little speech that she began to strut triumphantly up and down the room, repeating the last words to herself under her breath. But

inside Princess Violet’s head something seemed to snap suddenly, as though an elastic band had been broken there. It was the spell cast on her by old Miss Thomson at the christening, for there was one thing in the world strong enough to break it, and that was her love for Prince Courtesy. But she did not know this, for she had never heard of the spell. She only knew that something very strange had happened to her, and from moment on she loved Prince Courtesy more than she loved anything else in the world. But she still loved Princess Gamboy next best. She stopped crying, and without saying a word looked straight into her sister’s eyes. Gamboy stopped still, and the two Princesses stood for a whole minute looking at each other in silence. But then Princess Gamboy’s eyes fell to the ground abashed, and Princess Violet turned and left the room. She found the Prince waiting in the garden.

“Courtesy,” she cried; “you needn’t wait till tomorrow. The answer is ‘Yes!'”