e
that it really was better for the child to wear plain clothes and a veil
on week days. On Sundays, of course she could wear her best frock and a
clean crown just like anybody else.

Of course nobody ever told the Princess how ugly she was. She wore a
veil on week-days, and so did every one else in the palace, and she was
never allowed to look in the glass except on Sundays, so that she had no
idea that she was not as pretty all the week as she was on the first day
of it. She grew up therefore quite contented. But the parents were in
despair.

'Because,' said King Henry, 'it's high time she was married. We ought to
choose a king to rule the realm--I have always looked forward to her
marrying at twenty-one--and to our retiring on a modest competence to
some nice little place in the country where we could have a few pigs.'

'And a cow,' said the Queen, wiping her eyes.

'And a pony and trap,' said the King.

'And hens,' said the Queen, 'yes. And now it can never, never be. Look
at the child! I just ask you! Look at her!'

'_No_,' said the King firmly, 'I haven't done that since she was ten,
except on Sundays.'

'Couldn't we get a prince to agree to a "Sundays only" marriage--not let
him see her during the week?'

'Such an unusual arrangement,' said the King, 'would involve very
awkward explanations, and I can't think of any except the true ones,
which would be quite impossible to give. You see, we should want a
first-class prince, and no really high-toned Highness would take a wife
on those terms.'

'It's a thoroughly comfortable kingdom,' said the Queen doubtfully. 'The
young man would be handsomely provided for for life.'

'I couldn't marry Belinda to a time-server or a place-worshipper,' said
the King decidedly.

Meanwhile the Princess had taken the matter into her own hands. She had
fallen in love.

You know, of course, that a handsome book is sent out every year to all
the kings who have daughters to marry. It is rather like the illustrated
catalogues of Liberty's or Peter Robinson's, only instead of
illustrations showing furniture or ladies' cloaks and dresses, the
pictures are all of princes who are of an age to be married, and are
looking out for suitable wives. The book is called the 'Royal Match
Catalogue Illustrated,'--and besides the pictures of the princes it has
little printed bits about their incomes, accomplishments, prospects, and
tempers, and relations.

Now the Princess saw this book-