joy.

And so then, once more the Princess Alicia saw King Watkins the First, her father, standing in the doorway looking on, and he said, ‘What have you been doing, Alicia?’

‘Cooking and contriving, papa.’

‘What else have you been doing, Alicia?’

‘Keeping the children light-hearted, papa.’

‘Where is the magic fish-bone, Alicia?

‘In my pocket, papa.’

‘I thought you had lost it?’

‘O, no, papa!’

‘Or forgotten it?’

‘No, indeed, papa.’

The king then sighed so heavily, and seemed so low-spirited, and sat down so miserably, leaning his head upon his hand, and his elbow upon the kitchen-table pushed away in the corner, that the seventeen princes and princesses crept softly out of the kitchen, and left him alone with the Princess Alicia and the angelic baby.

‘What is the matter, papa?’

‘I am dreadfully poor, my child.’

‘Have you no money at all, papa?’

‘None, my child.’

‘Is there no way of getting any, papa?’

‘No way,’ said the king. ‘I have tried very hard, and I have tried all ways.’

When she heard those last words, the Princess Alicia began to put her hand into the pocket where she kept the magic fish-bone.

‘Papa,’ said she, ‘when we have tried very hard, and tried all ways, we must have done our very, very best?’

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