Blithely they stepped along, and prepared to enter the palace with a flourish of trumpets, as it were, when King’s music stopped suddenly.

“Great Golliwogs!” he cried.  “Look at that!”

“Look at what?” said Tom, who was absorbed in the grand march.

But he looked, and they all looked, and five angry exclamations sounded as they saw only the ruins of the beloved Sandringham Palace.

Somebody had utterly demolished it.  The low walls were broken and scattered, the sand tables and chairs were torn down, and the throne was entirely upset.

“Who did this?” roared Tom.

But as nobody knew the answer, there was no reply.

“It couldn’t have been any of your servants, could it?” asked King of the Craigs.  “I know it wasn’t any of ours.”

“No; it wasn’t ours, either,” said Tom.  “Could it have been your little sister?”

“Mercy, no!” cried Marjorie.  “Rosy Posy isn’t that sort of a child.  Oh, I do think it’s awful!” and forgetting her royal dignity, Queen Sandy began to cry.

“Why, Mops,” said King, kindly; “brace up, old girl.  Don’t cry.”

“I’m not a cry baby,” said Midget, smiling through her tears.  “I’m just crying ’cause I’m so mad!  I’m mad clear through!  How could anybody be so ugly?”

“I’m mad, too,” declared Tom, slowly, “but I know who did it, and it’s partly my fault, I s’pose.”

“Your fault!” exclaimed Midget.  “Why, Tom, how can it be?”

“Well, you see it was this way.  Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Corey came to call on my mother, and she brought Hester with her.”

“That red-headed girl?”

“Yes; and she has a temper to match her hair!  Mother made me talk to her, and, as I didn’t know what else to talk about, I told her about our Sand Club, and about the Court to-day and everything.  And she wanted to belong to the club, and I told her she couldn’t, because it was just the Maynards and the Craigs.  And she was madder’n hops, and she coaxed me, and I still said no, and then she said she’d get even with us somehow.”

“But, Tom,” said King, “we don’t know that girl to speak to.  We hardly know her by sight.”

“But we do.  We knew her when we were here last summer, but, you see, this year we’ve had you two to play with, so we’ve sort of neglected her,—­and she doesn’t like it.”

“But that’s no reason she should spoil our palace,” and Marjorie looked sadly at the scene of ruin and destruction.

“No; and of course I’m not sure that she did do it.  But she said she’d do something to get even with you.”

“With me?  Why, she doesn’t know me at all.”

“That’s what she’s mad about.  She says you’re stuck up, and you put on airs and never look at her.”

“Why, how silly!  I don’t know her, but somehow, from her looks, I know I shouldn’t like her.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Marjorie.  She’s selfish, and she’s ill-tempered.  She flies into a rage at any little thing, and,—­well, she isn’t a bit like you Maynards.”