sky shines on
them for nothing, where cocoa-nut and the orange stand always ready for
them to stretch forth their hands and take them, where they need but a
minimum of clothes, and where the very sea around them freely yields up
its fish and its conchs,--or, that is to say, they can get such things
for a trifling sum,--I would have asked them, I say, how--when free
citizens of a republic, such as we are, come from our shores of liberty,
where kings and queens are despised and any throne that is attempted to
be set up over us is crushed to atoms,--that when we, I say, come over
here, and out of the pure kindness and generosity of our souls raise
from the dust a poverty-stricken and down-trodden queen, and place her,
as nearly as possible, on the throne of her ancestors, and put upon her
head a crown,--a bauble which, in our own land, we trample under
foot----"

At this I shuddered, remembering the sharp points I had filed in our
crown.

"And grind into the dust," continued Mr. Chipperton,--"I would ask them,
I say, how they could think of all this, and then deliberately subvert,
at the behest of a young and giddy colored hireling, the structure we
had upraised. And what could they have said to that, I would like to
know?" he asked, looking around from one to another of us.

"Give us a small dive, boss?" suggested Rectus.

"That's so," said Mr. Chipperton, his face beaming into a broad smile;
"I believe they would have said that very thing. You have hit it
exactly. Let's go in to supper."

The next day, Rectus and I, with Corny and Mrs. Chipperton, walked down
to the queen's house, to see how she fared and what could be done for
her.

When we reached Poqua-dilla's hut, we saw her sitting on her door-step.
By her side were several joints of sugar-cane, and close to them stood
the crown, neatly filled with scarlet pepper-pods, which hung very
prettily over the peaked points of brass. She was very still, and her
head rested on her breast.

"Asleep!" whispered Corny.

"Yes," said Mrs. Chipperton, softly, "and don't let's waken her. She's
very well off as she is, and now that her house is a little more
comfortable, it would be well to leave her in peace, to peddle what she
pleases on her door-step. Her crown will worry her less where it is than
on her head."

Corny whispered to her mother, who nodded, and took out her pocket-book.
In a moment, Corny, with some change in her hand, went quietly up to the
yard and pu