rd, and the people were very forlorn who could not have a bit
of honey-comb at least once a day. The court preferred it to any other
food. Indeed it was this particular Queen who was in the kitchen
eating bread and honey, in the song.

[Illustration: A KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN BEE.]

But to return to the Bee Festival, on this especial sixteenth of May.
At sunset when the bees flew back to their hives for the last time
with their loads of honey, the court also went home. They danced along
in a splendid merry procession. The cream-colored ponies the King and
Queen rode pranced lightly in advance, their slender hoofs keeping
time to the flutes and the bells; and the gallants, leading the ladies
by the tips of their dainty fingers, came after them with gay waltzing
steps. The nurses who carried the Princess Rosetta held their heads
high, and danced along as bravely as the others, waving their
peacock-feather fans in their unoccupied hands. They bore the little
Princess in her basket between them as lightly as a feather. Up and
down she swung. When they first started she laughed and crowed; then
she became very quiet. The nurses thought she was asleep. They had
laid a little satin coverlet over her, and put a soft thick veil over
her face, that the damp evening-air might not give her the croup. The
Princess Rosetta was quite apt to have the croup.

The nurses cast a glance down at the veil and satin coverlet which
were so motionless. "Her Royal Highness is asleep," they whispered to
each other with nods. The nurses were handsome young women, and they
wore white lace caps, and beautiful long darned lace aprons. They
swung the Princess's basket along so easily that finally one of them
remarked upon it.

"How very light her Royal Highness is," said she.

"She weighs absolutely nothing at all," replied the other nurse who
was carrying the Princess, "absolutely nothing at all."

"Well, that is apt to be the case with such high-born infants," said
the first nurse. And they all waved their fans again in time to the
music.

When they reached the palace, the massive doors were thrown open, and
the court passed in. The nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up
the grand marble stair, and carried it into the nursery.

"We will lift her Royal Highness out very carefully, and possibly we
can put her to bed without waking her," said the Head-nurse.

But her Royal Highness's ladies-of-the-bed-chamber who were in waiting
set up su