ut he bowed low to her, which was not Uncle George's
habit, and said:

'Welcome, dear little Amabel. Please accept this admiring address from
the Mayor and burgesses and apprentices and all the rest of it, of
Whereyouwantogoto.'

The address was in silver letters, on white silk, and it said:

'Welcome, dear Amabel. We know you meant to please your aunt. It was
very clever of you to think of putting the greenhouse flowers in the
bare flower-bed. You couldn't be expected to know that you ought to ask
leave before you touch other people's things.'

'Oh, but,' said Amabel quite confused. 'I did....'

But the band struck up, and drowned her words. The instruments of the
band were all of silver, and the bandsmen's clothes of white leather.
The tune they played was 'Cheero!'

Then Amabel found that she was taking part in a procession, hand in hand
with the Mayor, and the band playing like mad all the time. The Mayor
was dressed entirely in cloth of silver, and as they went along he kept
saying, close to her ear.

'You have our sympathy, you have our sympathy,' till she felt quite
giddy.

There was a flower show--all the flowers were white. There was a
concert--all the tunes were old ones. There was a play called _Put
yourself in her place_. And there was a banquet, with Amabel in the
place of honour.

They drank her health in white wine whey, and then through the Crystal
Hall of a thousand gleaming pillars, where thousands of guests, all in
white, were met to do honour to Amabel, the shout went up--'Speech,
speech!'

I cannot explain to you what had been going on in Amabel's mind. Perhaps
you know. Whatever it was it began like a very tiny butterfly in a box,
that could not keep quiet, but fluttered, and fluttered, and fluttered.
And when the Mayor rose and said:

'Dear Amabel, you whom we all love and understand; dear Amabel, you who
were so unjustly punished for trying to give pleasure to an unresponsive
aunt; poor, ill-used, ill-treated, innocent Amabel; blameless, suffering
Amabel, we await your words,' that fluttering, tiresome butterfly-thing
inside her seemed suddenly to swell to the size and strength of a
fluttering albatross, and Amabel got up from her seat of honour on the
throne of ivory and silver and pearl, and said, choking a little, and
extremely red about the ears--

'Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to make a speech, I just want to
say, "Thank you," and to say--to say--to say....'

She stop