He had a strange miserable feeling, he said, that things were going terribly wrong, although he could not tell how.

Then the princess told him that Curdie had come, and that at night, when all was quiet for nobody in the palace must know, he would pay His Majesty a visit.

Her great-great-grandmother had sent him, she said.

The king looked strangely upon her, but the strange look passed into a smile clearer than the first, and irene's heart throbbed with delight..