id the queen.

"No, thank you, mamma; I had rather not."

"Would you not like to be able to walk like other people?" said the
king.

"No indeed, I should think not. You only crawl. You are such slow
coaches!"

"How do you feel, my child?" he resumed, after a pause of discomfiture.

"Quite well, thank you."

"I mean, what do you feel like?"

"Like nothing at all, that I know of."

"You must feel like something."

"I feel like a princess with such a funny papa, and such a dear pet of a
queen-mamma!"

"Now really!" began the queen; but the princess interrupted her.

"Oh, yes," she added, "I remember. I have a curious feeling sometimes,
as if I were the only person that had any sense in the whole world."

She had been trying to behave herself with dignity; but now she burst
into a violent fit of laughter, threw herself backwards over the chair,
and went rolling about the floor in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The king
picked her up easier than one does a down quilt, and replaced her in her
former relation to the chair. The exact preposition expressing this
relation I do not happen to know.

"Is there nothing you wish for?" resumed the king, who had learned by
this time that it was useless to be angry with her.

"Oh, you dear papa!--yes," answered she.

"What is it, my darling?"

"I have been longing for it--oh, such a time!--ever since last night."

"Tell me what it is."

"Will you promise to let me have it?"

The king was on the point of saying yes, but the wiser queen checked him
with a single motion of her head.

"Tell me what it is first," said he.

"No, no. Promise first."

"I dare not. What is it?"

"Mind, I hold you to your promise. It is--to be tied to the end of a
string--a very long string indeed, and be flown like a kite. Oh, such
fun! I would rain rose-water, and hail sugar-plums, and snow
whipped-cream, and--and--and--"

A fit of laughing checked her; and she would have been off again over
the floor, had not the king started up and caught her just in time.
Seeing that nothing but talk could be got out of her, he rang the bell,
and sent her away with two of her ladies-in-waiting.

"Now, queen," he said, turning to her Majesty, "what _is_ to be done?"

"There is but one thing left," answered she. "Let us consult the college
of Metaphysicians."

"Bravo!" cried the king; "we will."

Now at the head of this college were two very wise Chinese
philosophers--by name Hum-Drum, and Kopy-K