"Really in earnest!" repeated Otto. "Why, Pina, never were people more
in earnest in this world. If you'd heard and seen them talking about it
as I have, you'd not doubt their earnestness. Besides, you have no idea
how needful you are to the community. The fact is, it is composed of
such rough and rowdy elements--though of course there are some
respectable and well-principled fellows among them--that nothing short
of a power standing high above them and out o' their reach will have any
influence with them at all. There are so many strong, determined, and
self-willed men amongst them that there's no chance of their ever
agreeing to submit to each other; so, you see, you are a sort of good
angel, before whom they will be only too glad to bow--a kind of superior
being, whom they will reverence, and to whom they will submit--a human
safety-valve, in short, to prevent the community from blowing up--a
species of--of--"

Here Pauline burst into another of her irrepressible fits of laughter,
and being joined therein by Prince Otto, called forth a remonstrance
from Mrs Lynch, who declared that if that was the way they were goin'
to manage the affairs of state, she would be obliged to advise the
settlers to change their minds and set up a republic.

"An' sure, mother," said Otto, who was a privileged favourite, "nothing
could be better, with yourself as President."

"Go along wid ye, boy, an' do yer dooty. Tell the people that Miss
Pauline will be ready--wind an' weather permittin'."

"Am I to take back that message, Pina?" asked Otto, with a look of glee.

"Well, I suppose you may."

It was not in the nature of things that a coronation in the
circumstances which we have described should take place without being
more or less intermingled with the unavoidable absurdities which mark
the coronations of older and more densely peopled lands. It was felt
that as the act was a seriously meant reality, and no mere joke, it
should be gone about and accomplished with all due solemnity and proper
ceremonial, somewhat after the pattern--as Teddy Malone suggested--of a
Lord Mayor's Show; a suggestion, by the way, which did not conduce to
the solemnity of the preliminary discussions.

There was one great difficulty, however, with which the embryo nation
had to contend, and this was that not one of the community had ever seen
a coronation, or knew how the details of the matter should be arranged.

In these circumstances an assemb