he never
smiled and nodded, but she often did, though nobody knew it except the
Princess.

Then the Princess Alicia hurried downstairs again, to keep watch in the
Queen's room. She often kept watch by herself in the Queen's room; but
every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the
King. And every evening the King sat looking at her with a cross look,
wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. As often as she
noticed this, she ran up-stairs, whispered the secret to the Duchess over
again, and said to the Duchess besides, "They think we children never have
a reason or a meaning!" And the Duchess, though the most fashionable
Duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye.

"Alicia," said the King, one evening when she wished him Good Night.

"Yes, Papa."

"What is become of the magic fish-bone?"

"In my pocket, Papa."

"I thought you had lost it?"

"O, no, Papa."

"Or forgotten it?"

"No, indeed, Papa."

And so another time the dreadful little snapping pug-dog next door made a
rush at one of the young Princes as he stood on the steps coming home from
school, and terrified him out of his wits and he put his hand through a
pane of glass, and bled bled bled. When the seventeen other young Princes
and Princesses saw him bleed bleed bleed, they were terrified out of their
wits too, and screamed themselves black in their seventeen faces all at
once. But the Princess Alicia put her hands over all their seventeen
mouths, one after another, and persuaded them to be quiet because of the
sick Queen. And then she put the wounded Prince's hand in a basin of fresh
cold water, while they stared with their twice seventeen are thirty-four
put down four and carry three eyes, and then she looked in the hand for
bits of glass, and there were fortunately no bits of glass there. And
then she said to two chubby-legged Princes who were sturdy though small,
"Bring me in the Royal rag-bag; I must snip and stitch and cut and
contrive." So those two young Princes tugged at the Royal rag-bag and
lugged it in, and the Princess Alicia sat down on the floor with a large
pair of scissors and a needle and thread, and snipped and stitched and
cut and contrived, and made a bandage and put it on, and it fitted
beautifully, and so when it was all done she saw the King her Papa
looking on by the door.

[Illustration]

"Alicia."

"Yes, Papa."

"What have you been doing?"

"Snipping stitching cutting an