down in the sheets.

Lying there, he planned the day. There were to be no lessons except
fencing, which could hardly be called a lesson at all, and as he now
knew the "Gettysburg Address," he meant to ask permission to recite it
to his grandfather. To be quite sure of it, he repeated it to himself as
he lay there:--

"'Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal.'

"Free and equal," he said to himself. That rather puzzled him. Of course
people were free, but they did not seem to be equal. In the summer, at
the summer palace, he was only allowed to see a few children, because
the others were what his Aunt Annunciata called "bourgeois." And there
was in his mind also something Miss Braithwaite had said, after his
escapade with the American boy.

"If you must have some child to play with," she had said severely, "you
could at least choose some one approximately your equal."

"But he is my equal," he had protested from the outraged depths of his
small democratic heart.

"In birth," explained Miss Braithwaite.

"His father has a fine business," he had said, still rather indignant.
"It makes a great deal of money. Not everybody can build a scenic
railway and get it going right. Bobby said so."

Miss Braithwaite had been silent and obviously unconvinced. Yet this
Mr. Lincoln, the American, had certainly said that all men were free and
equal. It was very puzzling.

But, as the morning advanced, as, clothed and fed, the Crown Prince
faced the new day, he began to feel a restraint in the air. People
came and went, his grandfather's Equerry, the Chancellor, the Lord
Chamberlain, other gentlemen, connected with the vast and intricate
machinery of the Court, and even Hedwig, in a black frock, all these
people came, and talked together, and eyed him when he was not looking.
When they left they all bowed rather more than usual, except Hedwig, who
kissed him, much to his secret annoyance.

Every one looked grave, and spoke in a low tone. Also there was
something wrong with Nikky, who appeared not only grave, but rather
stern and white. Considering that it was the last day before Lent, and
Carnival time, Prince Ferdinand William Otto felt vaguely defrauded,
rather like the time he had seen "The Flying Dutchman," which had turned
out to be only a make-believe ship and did not fly at al