One day, when the Princess Angelica was quite a little girl, she was walking in the garden of the palace, with Mrs. Gruffanuff, the governess, holding a parasol over her head, to keep her sweet complexion¹ from the freckles², and Angelica was carrying a bun, to feed the swans and ducks in the royal pond.

They had not reached the duck-pond, when there came toddling³ up to them such a funny little girl! She had a great quantity of hair blowing about her chubby⁴ little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged⁵ bit of a cloak, and had only one shoe on.

“You little wretch⁶, who let you in here?” asked Mrs. Gruffanuff.

“Div me dat bun,” said the little girl, “me vely hungy.”

“Hungry! what is that?” asked Princess Angelica, and gave the child the bun.

“Oh, Princess!” says Mrs. Gruffanuff, “how good, how kind, how truly angelical you are! See, Your Majesties,” she said to the King and Queen, who now came up, along with their nephew, Prince Giglio, “how kind the Princess is! She met this little dirty wretch in the garden — I can’t tell how she came in here, or why the guards did not shoot her dead at the gate! — and the dear darling of a Princess has given her the whole of her bun!”

“I didn’t want it,” said Angelica.

“But you are a darling little angel all the same,” says the governess.

“Yes; I know I am,” said Angelica. “Dirty little girl, don’t you think I am very pretty?” Indeed, she had on the finest of little dresses and hats; and, as her hair was carefully curled, she really looked very well.

“Oh, pooty, pooty!” says the little girl, capering⁷ about, laughing, and dancing, and

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