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LABOULAYESS S EBATRY BOOK lowing lines, in the form of a letter without signature, in the unofficial part of the paper: "SA rumor has been spread that the king is thinking of. marrying again. The king knows what he owes to his people, and is always ready to sacrifice himself for the happiness of his subjects. But the people of Wild Oats have too much delicacy not to respect a recent affliction. The king’s whole thoughts are fixed on his beloved wife; he hopes the consolation from time that 1s at present refused him." This note threw the court and town in agitation. The young girls thought the scruples of the prince exaggerated; more than one mother shrugged her shoulders, and said that the king had vulgar prejudices worthy only of the common people; but at night there was strife in every well-ordered household. There was not a wife of any pretensions to aristocratic birth that did not quarrel with her unworthy spouse and force him to admit that there was but one heart capable of love, and but one faithful husband in the whole kingdom, namely, Prince Charming. VII TWO CONSULTATIONS After so much excitement, the king was seized with a cruel fit of tedium. To divert himself, he attempted every 174
