"Ah," cried the little maid, "then you have never met my father, the
Prince. He is terribly particular. You must go _so_" (she imitated the
mincing walk of a court chamberlain), "you must hold your tails thus"
(wagging her white nightrail and twisting about her head to watch the
effect), "and you must retire--so!" With that she came bowing backward
towards the well of the staircase, so far that I was almost afraid she
would fall plump into my arms. But she checked herself in time, and
without looking round or seeing me she tripped back to my father's
bedside and sat down quite confidingly beside him.

"Now you see," cried she, "what you would have had to put up with if you
had met my father. Be thankful then that it is only the little Princess
Helene that is sitting here."

"I think I had the honor to meet your father," said Gottfried Gottfried,
gravely, again removing the restless baby fingers from the Red Axe and
laying it on the far side of the couch beyond him.

"Then, if you met him, did he not make you bow and bend and walk
backward?" asked the Playmate, looking up very sharply.

"Well, you see, Princess," explained my father, "it was for such a very
short time that I had the honor of converse with him."

"Ah, that does not matter," cried the maid; "often he would be most
difficult when you came running in just for a moment. Why, he would
straighten you up and make you do your bows if you were only racing
after a kitten, or, what was worse, he would call the Court Chamberlain
to show you how to do it. But when I am grown up--ah, then!--I mean to
make the Chamberlain bow and walk backward; for you know he is only