PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.

I.

THE PRINCESS ROSETTA.


The Bee Festival was held on the sixteenth day of May; all the court
went. The court-ladies wore green silk scarfs, long green floating
plumes in their bonnets, and green satin petticoats embroidered with
apple-blossoms. The court-gentlemen wore green velvet tunics with
nose-gays in their buttonholes, and green silk hose. Their little
pointed shoes were adorned with knots of flowers instead of buckles.

As for the King himself, he wore a thick wreath of cherry and
peach-blossoms instead of his crown, and carried a white thorn-branch
instead of his scepter. His green velvet robe was trimmed with a
border of blue and white violets instead of ermine. The Queen wore a
garland of violets around her golden head, and the hem of her gown was
thickly sown with primroses.

But the little Princess Rosetta surpassed all the rest. Her little
gown was completely woven of violets and other fine flowers. There was
a very skillful seamstress in the court who knew how to do this kind
of work, although no one except the Princess Rosetta was allowed to
wear a flower-cloth gown to the Bee Festival. She wore also a little
white violet cap, and two of her nurses carried her between them in a
little basket lined with rose and apple-leaves.