“Mama’s tiara is all right for a ball,” Zelie retorted, “but it is far too small for a Wedding at which I should imagine I will be crowned the Queen.”
She took another long look at herself in the mirror and then went on,
“If the King has nothing bigger and better in his safe, I shall feel I have been defrauded.”
Sola did not wait to say anything more to her sister.
She hurried after her father. She was as excited as he was at the idea of seeing in bloom a rare orchid that had been sent to him the previous year from his horticulturist friend in Nepal.
She could not help at the same time feeling extremely grateful that at last, after so much complaining and hassle, her sister was to be married. And to a King!
Zelie had talked of nothing else since she was eighteen.
It had been a nigh
