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“What are you stirring, boy?” asked Ferdinand.

“Praised be the Virgin!” said the boy, “I believe it’s an ice-pudding for the banquet. But they shouldn’t have put the ice-puddings in the same arbour as the fireworks; for, if your Highness will allow me to say so, you can’t expect old heads on young shoulders.”

“Are the fireworks in our honour too?”

“Why, of course,” the scullion answered; “everything is in your honour to-day.”

This simplified matters wonderfully. The children passed on through a gate in the garden wall and came upon a clearing beside a woodstack; and there stood a caravan with its shafts in the air. A woman sat on the tilt at the back, reading, and every now and then glancing towards two men engaged in deadly combat in the middle of the clearing, who shouted as they thrust at one another with long swords.

The little Princess, who, except when driven in her state-coach to the Cathedral, had never before strayed outside the garden, turned very pale and caught at her husband’s hand. But he stepped forward boldly.

“Now yield thee, caitiff, or thine hour has come!” shouted one of the fighters and flourished his blade.

“Sooner I’ll die than tum te tum te tum!” the other answered quite as fiercely.

“Slave of thine become,” said the woman from the caravan.

“Thank you. Sooner I’ll die than slave of thine become!” He laid about him with fresh vigour.

“Put down your swords,” commanded Ferdinand.

“And now tell me who you are.”

“We are Valentine and Orson,” they answered.

“Indeed?” Ferdinand had heard of them, and shook hands affably. “Then I’m very glad to make your acquaintance.”

“And,” said they, “we are rehearsing for the performance at the Palace to-night in your Highnesses’ honour.”

“Oh, so this is in our honour too?”

“To be sure,” said the woman; “and I am to dress up as Hymen and speak the Epilogue in a saffron robe. It has some good lines; for instance–“

‘Ye Loves and Genial Hours, conspire
To gratify this Royal Pair
With Sons impetuous as their Sire,
And Daughters as their Mother fair!’

“Thank you,” said Ferdinand. “But we are very busy to-day and must take one thing at a time. Can you tell us the way to the sea, please?”

The woman pointed along a path which led to a moss-covered gate and an orchard where the apple-blossom piled itself in pink clouds against the blue sky: as they followed the path they heard her laughing, and looked back to see her still staring after them and laughing merrily, while Valentine and Orson leaned on their swords and laughed too.

The orchard was the prettiest in the whole world. Blackbirds played hide-and-seek beneath the boughs, blue and white violets hid in the tall grass around the boles, and the spaces between were carpeted with daisies to the edge of a streamlet. Over the streamlet sang thrushes and goldfinches and bull-finches innumerable, and their voices shook down the blossom like a fall of pink snow, which threatened to cover even the daisies. The Grand Duke and the Princess believed that all this beauty was in their honour, no less than the chorus of the bells floating across the tree-tops from the city.

“This is the best of all,” said Ferdinand as they seated themselves by the stream. “I had no idea marriage was such fun. And they haven’t even forgotten the trout!” he cried, peering over the brink.

“Can you make daisy-chains?” asked the Princess timidly.

He could not; so she taught him, feeling secretly proud that there was something he could learn of her. When the chain was finished he flung it over his neck and kissed her. “Though I don’t like kissing, as a rule,” he explained.

“And this shall be my wedding present,” said she.

“Why, I brought you six waggon-loads!–beauties–all chosen by my Chancellor.”