r very very best?"

"No doubt, Alicia."

"When we have done our very very best, Papa, and that is not enough, then
I think the right time must have come for asking help of others." This was
the very secret connected with the magic fish-bone, which she had found
out for herself from the good fairy Grandmarina's words, and which she had
so often whispered to her beautiful and fashionable friend the Duchess.

So she took out of her pocket the magic fish-bone that had been dried and
rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and she gave it
one little kiss and wished it was quarter day. And immediately it _was_
quarter day; and the King's quarter's salary came rattling down the
chimney, and bounced into the middle of the floor.

But this was not half of what happened, no not a quarter, for immediately
afterwards the good fairy Grandmarina came riding in, in a carriage and
four (Peacocks), with Mr Pickles's boy up behind, dressed in silver and
gold, with a cocked hat, powdered hair, pink silk stockings, a jewelled
cane, and a nosegay. Down jumped Mr Pickles's boy with his cocked hat in
his hand and wonderfully polite (being entirely changed by enchantment),
and handed Grandmarina out, and there she stood in her rich shot silk
smelling of dried lavender, fanning herself with a sparkling fan.

"Alicia, my dear," said this charming old Fairy, "how do you do, I hope I
see you pretty well, give me a kiss."

The Princess Alicia embraced her, and then Grandmarina turned to the King,
and said rather sharply:--"Are you good?"

[Illustration: "Alicia, my dear ... how do you do?"]

The King said he hoped so.

"I suppose you know the reason, _now_, why my god-Daughter here," kissing
the Princess again, "did not apply to the fish-bone sooner?" said the
Fairy.

The King made her a shy bow.

"Ah! but you didn't _then_!" said the Fairy.

The King made her a shyer bow.

"Any more reasons to ask for?" said the Fairy.

The King said no, and he was very sorry.

"Be good then," said the Fairy, "and live happy ever afterwards."

Then, Grandmarina waved her fan, and the Queen came in most splendidly
dressed, and the seventeen young Princes and Princesses, no longer grown
out of their clothes, came in newly fitted out from top to toe, with tucks
in everything to admit of its being let out. After that, the Fairy tapped
the Princess Alicia with her fan, and the smothering coarse apron flew
away, and she appeared exquis