you have got three toes yourself--one on one foot, two on the other."
"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the queen triumphantly.
The councilor, encouraged by this mark of favor, went on.
"It seems to me, your royal Highness, it would greatly endear you to
your future people, proving to them that you are not the less one of
themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, if
you were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight
operation
which, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate with regard to
your future princess."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the queen, louder than before, and the king and
the minister joined in the laugh. It was anything but a laughing matter
to Harelip. He growled, and for a few moments the others continued to
express their enjoyment of his discomfiture.
The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness.
She
sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon her face.
Madhuri Noah
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