Take that paper from His Lordship's hand, and read it to me from beginning to end, while my lord drinks a glass of my favourite wine, and watches for your blunders.' 'Pardon me, Your Majesty,' said the lord chamberlain, with as much of a smile as he was able to extemporize, 'but it were a thousand pities to put the attainments of Her Royal Highness to a test altogether too severe.

Your Majesty can scarcely with justice expect the very organs of her speech to prove capable of compassing words so long, and to her so unintelligible.' 'I think much of my little princess and her capabilities,' returned the king, more and more aroused.

'Pray, my lord, permit her to try.' 'Consider, Your Majesty: the thing would be altogether without precedent.

It would be to make sport of statecraft,' said the lord chamberlain.
'Perhaps you are right, my lord,' answered the king, with more meaning than he intended should be manifest, while to his growing joy he felt new life and power throbbing in heart and brain.

'So this morning we shall read no further.