`Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on, `What's your name, child?'
`And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.
A little provoked, she drew back, and after looking everywhere for the queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction.
She had not been walking a minute before she found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the hill she had been so long aiming at.
So she told him, as they walked back through the glade, how that the fame of his prowess had reached Queen Eleanor's ears, in London town.
And the Queen was right glad, and bade me go, and sent this gold ring to you from off her finger, in token of her faith."
"Why do you say that?" asked the queen, almost timidly.
"I ask your pardon for him, cardinal," said the queen; "he is a child, not yet able to understand his obligations to you."
"I believe, and I repeat it to your Majesty, that the
queen conspires against the power of the king, but I have not said against his honor."
To the feast was asked, among the rest, Snowdrop's old enemy the
queen; and as she was dressing herself in fine rich clothes, she looked in the glass and said:
The 'Good
Queen' on her side watched carefully over her godson.
"Peace, Little John!" said Robin Hood hastily, in a low voice; but good
Queen Eleanor laughed aloud, and a ripple of merriment sounded all over the booth.
