nurse stepped up to the basket and reached down to clasp the Princess
Rosetta. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.

The third nurse, trembling so she could scarcely stand, came next.
After she had stooped over the basket, she also gave a loud scream and
fainted. Then the fourth nurse stepped up, bent over the basket, and
fainted. So all the Princess Rosetta's nurses lay fainting on the
floor beside her basket.

It was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any one except the
nurses to approach nearer than five yards to her Royal Highness before
she was taken from her basket. So they crowded together at that
distance and craned their necks.

"What can ail the nurses?" they whispered in terrified tones. They
could not go near enough to the basket to see what the trouble was,
and still it seemed very necessary that they should.

"I wish I had a telescope," said the lady with the hair-brush.

But there was none in the room, and it was contrary to the rules of
etiquette for any person to leave it until the Princess was taken from
the basket.

There seemed to be no proper way out of the difficulty. Finally the
first fiddler stood up with an air of resolution, and began unwinding
the green silk sash from his waist. It was eleven yards long. He
doubled it, and launched it at the basket, like a lasso.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS WAS NOT IN THE BASKET!]