A Little Queen of Hearts by Ruth Ogden — Read

The day for Donald's departure had arrived -- that is, to the extent that the sun, rising clear and bright at four o'clock, shone alike upon the big castle on the hill and the little one beneath it. In the big castle, let us hope, since we may not know, that even crowned heads were resting easily, and that the level rays were powerless at that early hour to waken them to that sense of great uneasiness supposed to be inseparable from the lot of the "nobly born."

But alas! I for one know to a Certainty that in the little castle there was rebellion almost amounting to mutiny, and that one curly, uncrowned head, that need not have had a care in all the world, was tossing uneasily on its pillow. It was behaving, indeed, like the most unruly little head imaginable, and obstinately refusing to accept a course of action which heads far older and wiser than the little head in question had agreed upon as in every way desirable. Indeed, the little queen, whose realm was the hearts of her nearest and dearest, would have been obliged to abdicate, for a while at least, I fancy, had she not chosen before nightfall of that same day to bury her head in the lap of her very most loyal subject, and with tears and sohs confess to her extreme unreasonableness and avow her determination not soon again to be overtaken by such a sorry state of mind and temper. Even Donald stared at Marie-Celeste in grieved and reproving wonder, and yet to all appearances it was all for Donald's sake, this defiant, protesting attitude of hers, and Donald knew it. The trouble was that Marie-Celeste did not see or would not see either rhyme or reason in Donald's being sent down to Nuneham.