when the princess had been good all through the week for, like all real, live, nice children, she was sometimes naughty, but never bad nurse would allow her to ask her little friends to come on wednesday morning early and spend the day, because wednesday is the end of the week in that country. then, in the afternoon, when all the little dukes and duchesses and marquises and countesses had finished their rice pudding and had had their hands and faces washed after it, nurse would say: "now, my dears, what would you like to do this afternoon?" just as if she didn't know. and the answer would be always the same: