All the company, as they danced along, sang, or played on flutes, or
rang little glass and silver bells. Nobody except the King and Queen
rode. They rode cream-colored ponies, with silken ropes wound with
flowers for bridle-reins.

The Bee Festival was held in a beautiful park a mile distant from the
city. The young grass there was green and velvety, and spangled
all over with fallen apple and cherry and peach and plum and pear
blossoms; for the park was set with fruit-trees in even rows. The blue
sky showed between the pink and white branches, and the air was very
sweet and loud with the humming of bees. The trees were all full of
bees. There was something peculiar about the bees of this country;
none of them had stings.

When the court reached the park, they all tinkled their bells in time,
whistled on their flutes, and sang a song which they always sang on
these occasions. Then they played games and enjoyed themselves. They
played hide-and-seek among the trees, and formed rings and danced. The
bees flew around them, and seemed to know them. The little Princess,
lying in her basket, crowed and laughed, and caught at them when they
came humming over her face. Her nurses stood around her, and waved
great fans of peacock-feathers, but that did not frighten the bees at
all.

The court's lunch was spread on a damask-cloth, in an open space
between the trees. There were biscuits of wheaten flour, plates of
honey-comb, and cream in tall glass ewers. That was the regulation
lunch at the Bee Festival. The Bee Festival was nearly as old as the
kingdom, and there was an ancient legend about it, which the Poet
Laureate had put into an epic poem. The King had it in his royal