andrum, then the Queen, then the Sand
Crab, and finally, Sandow with the flag.

Slowly and with great dignity the procession filed out toward the
palace. King was playing the Star Spangled Banner, or thought he was. It
sounded almost as much like Hail Columbia,--but it didn't really matter,
and they're both difficult tunes, anyway.

Blithely they stepped along, and prepared to enter the palace with a
flourish of trumpets, as it were, when King's music stopped suddenly.

"Great Golliwogs!" he cried. "Look at that!"

"Look at what?" said Tom, who was absorbed in the grand march.

But he looked, and they all looked, and five angry exclamations sounded
as they saw only the ruins of the beloved Sandringham Palace.

Somebody had utterly demolished it. The low walls were broken and
scattered, the sand tables and chairs were torn down, and the throne was
entirely upset.

"Who did this?" roared Tom.

But as nobody knew the answer, there was no reply.

"It couldn't have been any of your servants, could it?" asked King of
the Craigs. "I know it wasn't any of ours."

"No; it wasn't ours, either," said Tom. "Could it have been your little
sister?"

"Mercy, no!" cried Marjorie. "Rosy Posy isn't that sort of a child. Oh,
I do think it's awful!" and forgetting her royal dignity, Queen Sandy
began to cry.

"Why, Mops," said King, kindly; "brace up, old girl. Don't cry."

"I'm not a cry baby," said Midget, smiling through her tears. "I'm just
crying 'cause I'm so _mad_! I'm mad clear through! How _could_ anybody
be so ugly?"

"I'm mad, too," declared Tom, slowly, "but I know who did it, and it's
partly my fault, I s'pose."

"Your fault!" exclaimed Midget. "Why, Tom, how can it be?"

"Well, you see it was this way. Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Corey came to
call on my mother, and she brought Hester with her."

"That red-headed girl?"

"Yes; and she has a temper to match her hair! Mother made me talk to
her, and, as I didn't know what else to talk about, I told her about our
Sand Club, and about the Court to-day and everything. And she wanted to
belong to the club, and I told her she couldn't, because it was just the
Maynards and the Craigs. And she was madder'n hops, and she coaxed me,
and I still said no, and then she said she'd get even with us somehow."

"But, Tom," said King, "we don't know that girl to speak to. We hardly
know her by sight."

"But we do. We knew her when we were here last summer, but, you see,
t