"What King and Queen?" asked the Princess.

"Your father and mother," your sorrowing parents, said Kathleen.
"They'll have waked up by now. Won't they be wanting to see you,
after a hundred years, you know?"

"Oh ah yes," said the Princess slowly. "I embraced my rejoicing
parents when I got the bread and cheese. They re having their
dinner. They won't expect me yet. Here," she added, hastily putting
a ruby bracelet on Kathleen's arm, "see how splendid that is!"

Kathleen would have been quite content to go on all day trying on
different jewels and looking at herself in the little silver-framed
mirror that the Princess took from one of the shelves, but the boys
were soon weary of this amusement.

"Look here," said Gerald, "if you're sure your father and mother
won't want you, let's go out and have a jolly good game of
something. You could play besieged castles awfully well in that
maze unless you can do any more magic tricks."

"You forget," said the Princess, "I'm grown up. I don't play games.
And I don't like to do too much magic at a time, it's so tiring.
Besides, it'll take us ever so long to put all these things back in
their proper places."

It did. The children would have laid the jewels just anywhere; but
the Princess showed them that every necklace, or ring, or bracelet
had its own home on the velvet a slight hollowing in the shelf
beneath, so that each stone fitted into its own little nest.