hand in preventing it. Once more Irene heard the bugle-blast, and once
more she was at the gate to meet her father as he rode up on his great
white horse.
After they had been alone for a little while, she thought of what she
had resolved to ask him.
"Please, king-papa," she said, "will you tell me where I got this pretty
ring? I can't remember."
The king looked at it. A strange, beautiful smile spread like sunshine
over his face, and an answering smile, but at the same time a
questioning one, spread like moonlight over Irene's.
"It was your queen-mamma's once," he said.
"And why isn't it hers now?" asked Irene.
"She does not want it now," said the king, looking grave.
"Why doesn't she want it now?"
Madhuri Noah
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