Having stumbled into the road to peace of conscience, Mary trod it bravely and joyously.  Theodora’s future rank increased with the decrease of her present comfort, but her posts, though lofty and remunerative, were never such as would bring her into intimate contact with the person of the queen.

She was betrothed to the son of a noble, and very distant, house after an afternoon when the perambulator, ill-trained to cross-country work, balked at the first stone wall on the way to the old ladies’ house.  It was then dragged backward for a judicious distance and faced at the obstacle at a mad gallop.  Umbrella down, handle up, wheels madly whirring, it was forced to the jump.

Again it refused, reared high into the air, stood for an instant upon its hind wheels and then fell supinely on its side, shedding its blankets, its pillows, and Theodora upon the cold, hard stones.

After that her rise was rapid, and the distance separating her from her sister’s elaborate court more perilous and more beset with seas and boars and mountains and robbers.  She was allowed to wed her high-born betrothed when she had been forgotten for three hours while Mary learned a heart-rending poem commencing, “Oh, hath she then failed in her troth, the beautiful maid I adore?” until even Miss Susan could only weep in intense enjoyment and could suggest; no improvement in the recitation.

On another occasion Mary was obliged to borrow the perambulator for the conveyance of leaves and branches with which to build a bower withal; and Theodora, having been established in unfortunate proximity to an ant hill, was thoroughly explored by its inhabitants ere her ministering sister realized that her cries and agitation were anything more than her usual attitude of protest against whatever chanced to be going on.  By the time the bower was finished and the perambulator ready for its customary occupant that young person was in a position to claim heavy damages.

“Don’t you care,” said Mary cheerfully, as she relieved Theodora from the excessive animation.  “I can make it up to you when I’m big.  My prince husband—­I guess he’d better be a king by that time—­will go over to your country an’ kill your husband’s father an’ his grandfather an’ all the kings an’ princes until there’s nobody only your husband to be king.  Then you’ll be a queen you see, an’ live in a palace.  So now hush up.”  And one future majesty was rocked upside down by another until the royal face of the younger queen was purple and her voice was still.

Mary found it more difficult to quiet her new and painful agnosticism, and in her efforts to reconcile dogma with manifestation she evolved a series of theological and economical questions which surprised her father and made her mother’s head reel.  She further manifested a courteous attention when the minister came to call, and she engaged him in spiritual converse until he writhed again.  For a space her investigations led her no whither, and then, without warning, the man of peace solved her dilemma and shed light upon her path.