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“If she wasn’t raving in delirium,” said Peter Piper, “we shall not have any heads. You had better go back to the Castle tonight, Patsy. Racketty-Packetty House is no place for you.”

Then Lady Patsy drew herself up so straight that she nearly fell over backwards.

“I–will–never–leave you!” she said, and Peter Piper couldn’t make her.

You can just imagine what a doleful night it was. They went all over the house together and looked at every hole in the carpet and every piece of stuffing sticking out of the dear old shabby sofas, and every broken window and chair leg and table and ragged blanket– and the tears ran down their faces for the first time in their lives. About six o’clock in the morning Peter Piper made a last effort.

“Let’s all join hands in a circle,” he said quite faintly, “and dance round and round once more.”

But it was no use. When they joined hands they could not dance, and when they found they could not dance they all tumbled down in a heap and cried instead of laughing and Lady Patsy lay with her arms round Peter Piper’s neck.

Now here is where I come in again–Queen Crosspatch–who is telling you this story. I always come in just at the nick of time when people like the Racketty-Packettys are in trouble. I walked in at seven o’clock.

“Get up off the floor,” I said to them all and they got up and stared at me. They actually thought I did not know what had happened.

“A little girl Princess is coming this morning,” said Peter Piper, and our house is going to be burned over our heads. This is the end of Racketty-Packetty House.”

“No, it isn’t!” I said. “You leave this to me. I told the Princess to come here, though she doesn’t know it in the least.”

A whole army of my Working Fairies began to swarm in at the nursery window. The nurse was working very hard to put things in order and she had not sense enough to see Fairies at all. So she did not see mine, though there were hundreds of them. As soon as she made one corner tidy, they ran after her and made it untidy. They held her back by her dress and hung and swung on her apron until she could scarcely move and kept wondering why she was so slow. She could not make the nursery tidy and she was so flurried she forgot all about Racketty-Packetty House again–especially as my Working Fairies pushed the arm-chair close up to it so that it was quite hidden. And there it was when the little girl Princess came with her Ladies in Waiting. My fairies had only just allowed the nurse to finish the nursery.

Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper and Lady Patsy were huddled up together looking out of one window. They could not bear to be parted. I sat on the arm of the big chair and ordered my Working Fairies to stand ready to obey me the instant I spoke.

The Princess was a nice child and was very polite to Cynthia when she showed her all her dolls, and last but not least, Tidy Castle itself. She looked at all the rooms and the furniture and said polite and admiring things about each of them. But Cynthia realized that she was not so much interested in it as she had thought she would be. The fact was that the Princess had so many grand dolls’ houses in her palace that Tidy Castle did not surprise her at all. It was just when Cynthia was finding this out that I gave the order to my Working Fairies.

“Push the arm-chair away,” I commanded; “very slowly, so that no one will know it is being moved.”

So they moved it away–very, very slowly and no one saw that it had stirred. But the next minute the little girl Princess gave a delightful start.