can play at cooking,' said the Princess. 'I've always wanted to
do that. If only there was something to cook!'

She looked in the cupboards, and there were lots of canisters and jars,
with rice, and flour, and beans, and peas, and lentils, and macaroni,
and currants, and raisins, and candied peel, and sugar, and sago, and
cinnamon. She ate a whole lump of candied citron, and enjoyed it very
much.

'I shan't starve, anyway,' she said. 'But oh! of course, I shall soon
eat up all these things, and then----'

In her agitation she dropped the jar; it did not break, but all the
candied peel rolled away into corners and under tables. Yet when she
picked the jar up it was as full as ever.

'Oh, hooray!' cried Everilda, who had once heard a sentry use that low
expression; 'of course it's a magic tower, and everything is magic in
it. The jars will always be full.'

The fire was laid, so she lighted it and boiled some rice, but it stuck
to the pot and got burned. You know how nasty burned rice is? and the
macaroni she tried to cook would not get soft. So she went out into the
garden, and had a very much nicer dinner than she could ever have
cooked. Instead of meat she had apples, and instead of vegetables she
had plums, and she had peaches instead of pudding.

There were rows and rows of beautiful books in the sitting-room, and she
read a little, and wrote a long letter to nurse, in case anyone ever
came who knew nurse's address and would post it for her. And then she
had a nectarine-and-mulberry tea.

By this time the sun was sinking all red and splendid beyond the dark
waters of the Perilous Sea, and Everilda sat down on the window seat to
watch it.

I shall not tell you whether she cried at all then. Perhaps you would
have cried just a little if you had been in her place.

'Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!' she said, sniffing slightly. (Perhaps she
had a cold.) 'There's nobody to tuck me up in bed--nobody at all.'

And just as she said it something fat and furry flew between her and the
sunset. It hovered clumsily a moment, and then swooped in at the window.

'Oh!' cried the Princess, very much frightened indeed.

'Don't you know me?' said the stout furry creature, folding its wings.
'I'm the cat you saved from the indignity of a rusty kettle in
connection with my honourable tail.'

'But that cat hadn't got wings,' said Everilda, 'and you're much bigger
than it, and it couldn't talk.'

'How do you know it couldn't t