f.

Now when this happened the Princess was away on a visit to her aunt, the
Empress of Oricalchia, half the world away, and there is no regular post
between the two countries, so that when she came home, travelling with
a train of fifty-four camels, which is rather slow work, and arrived at
her own kingdom, she expected to find all the flags flying and the bells
ringing and the streets decked in roses to welcome her home.

Instead of which nothing of the kind. The streets were all as dull as
dull, the shops were closed because it was early-closing day, and she
did not see a single person she knew.

She left the fifty-four camels laden with the presents her aunt had
given her outside the gates, and rode alone on her own pet camel to the
palace, wondering whether perhaps her father had not received the letter
she had sent on ahead by carrier pigeon the day before.

And when she got to the palace and got off her camel and went in, there
was a strange king on her father's throne and a strange queen sat in her
mother's place at his side.

'Where's my father?' said the Princess, bold as brass, standing on the
steps of the throne. 'And what are you doing there?'

'I might ask you that,' said the King. 'Who are you, anyway?'

'I am the Princess Ozyliza,' said she.

'Oh, I've heard of you,' said the King. 'You've been expected for some
time. Your father's been evicted, so now you know. No, I can't give you
his address.'

Just then some one came and whispered to the Queen that fifty-four
camels laden with silks and velvets and monkeys and parakeets and the
richest treasures of Oricalchia were outside the city gate. She put two
and two together, and whispered to the King, who nodded and said:

'I wish to make a new law.'

Every one fell flat on his face. The law is so much respected in that
country.

'No one called Ozyliza is allowed to own property in this kingdom,' said
the King. 'Turn out that stranger.'

So the Princess was turned out of her father's palace, and went out and
cried in the palace gardens where she had been so happy when she was
little.

And the baker's boy, who was now the baker's young man, came by with the
standard bread and saw some one crying among the oleanders, and went to
say, 'Cheer up!' to whoever it was. And it was the Princess. He knew her
at once.

'Oh, Princess,' he said, 'cheer up! Nothing is ever so bad as it seems.'

'Oh, Baker's Boy,' said she, for she knew him too, 'how can