"Dahlias  signify  dignity  and  elegance;  you  are
dignified,  Monsieur,  and  dignity  is  elegance."

"Well !"  cried  the  Englishman,  smiling  with
pleasure;  "that  is  turned  as  adroitly  as  a  woman
of  thirty."

"And  am  I  not  to  have  one?"  asked  the  king,
his  eyes  full  of  paternal  love  and  pride.
"They  are  for  your  Majesty's  table,"  she  an-
swered.
"Your  Majesty!"  cried  the  king  in  mimic  de-
spair. "Was  ever  a  father  treated  thus?  Your
Majesty !  Do  you  not  know,  my  dear,  that  to  me
'father'  is  the  grandest  title  in  the  world?"

Suddenly  she  crossed  over  and  kissed  the  king
on  the  cheek,  and  he  held  her  to  him  for  a  moment.
The  bulldog  had  risen,  and  was  wagging  his
tail  the  best  he  knew  how.  If  there  was  any
young  woman  who  could  claim  his  unreserved  ad-
miration, it  was  the  Princess  Alexia.  She  never
talked  nonsense  to  him  in  their  rambles  together,
but  treated  him  as  he  should  be  treated,  as  an  ani-
mal of  enlightenment.
"And  here  is  Bull,"  said  the  princess,  tickling
the  dog's  nose  with  a  scarlet  geranium.
10  THE     PUPPET     CROWN

"Your  Highness  thinks  a  deal  of  Bull?"  said  the
dog's  master.
