The Head-nurse with her eyes full of tears because of the reproaches she had received, reached down her arms and attempted to lift the Princess Rosetta—­suddenly she turned very white, and tossed aside the veil and the satin coverlet.  Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.

The ladies stared at one another.

“What is the matter with the Head-nurse?” they asked.  Then the second nurse stepped up to the basket and reached down to clasp the Princess Rosetta.  Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.

The third nurse, trembling so she could scarcely stand, came next.  After she had stooped over the basket, she also gave a loud scream and fainted.  Then the fourth nurse stepped up, bent over the basket, and fainted.  So all the Princess Rosetta’s nurses lay fainting on the floor beside her basket.

It was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any one except the nurses to approach nearer than five yards to her Royal Highness before she was taken from her basket.  So they crowded together at that distance and craned their necks.

“What can ail the nurses?” they whispered in terrified tones.  They could not go near enough to the basket to see what the trouble was, and still it seemed very necessary that they should.

“I wish I had a telescope,” said the lady with the hair-brush.

But there was none in the room, and it was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any person to leave it until the Princess was taken from the basket.

There seemed to be no proper way out of the difficulty.  Finally the first fiddler stood up with an air of resolution, and began unwinding the green silk sash from his waist.  It was eleven yards long.  He doubled it, and launched it at the basket, like a lasso.

[Illustration:  The princess was not in the basket!]

“There is nothing in the code of etiquette to prevent the Princess approaching us before she is taken from her basket,” he said bravely.  All the ladies applauded.

He threw the lasso very successfully.  It went quite around the basket.  Then he drew it gently over the five yards.  They all crowded around, and looked into it.

The Princess was not in the basket!

II.

The pop-corn man.

That night the whole kingdom was in a turmoil.  The Bee Guards were called out, and patrolled the city, alarm-bells rung, signal fires burned, and everybody was out with a lantern.  They searched every inch of the road to the park where the Bee Festival had been held, for it did seem at first as if the Princess had possibly been spilled out of the basket, although the nurses were confident that it was not so.  So they searched carefully, and the nurses were in the meantime placed in custody.  But nothing was found.  The people held their lanterns low, and looked under every bush, and even poked aside the grasses, but they could not find the Princess on the road to the park.