QUEEN SYLVIA. CHAPTER VII. How Sylvia made a Duke. It is almost unnecessary that I should tell you the real name and rank of the able-bodied mariner who so unceremoniously forced himself into SYLVIA'S Christmas party. You know, of course, that it was HILDEBRAND, SYLVIA'S father. Why he could not reveal himself I have already told you. During the weeks that had elapsed since she was proclaimed Queen he had been brooding in retirement over his unfortunate position, and, without having any definite plan, he had made up his mind that he must see her again by hook or by crook. The Christmas party offered him a splendid opportunity, and he had seized it with the lucky result described in the last chapter. The Queen, moreover, without knowing why, had been strangely attracted to him. Before the party finally broke up she had asked him to call again on the following day, and to bring with him any testimonials to good character that he might possess. He had only two, one from the captain of a ship in which he had formerly sailed, the other from the hereditary Grand Butler to the King of the WINDWARD ISLANDS, in whose service a year of his adventurous life had been passed. These were, however, on inspection, judged to be sufficient to recommend him for the position of Naval Blue-Stick-in-Waiting, which happened at that moment to be vacant. To this he had promptly been appointed, and, as his office brought him into daily contact. with her Majesty, it may be supposed that he became a fairly happy man. One thing alone troubled him: he foresaw that sooner or later he would have to meet his wife (who was, as I need hardly add, SYLVIA's mother), and, though for many obvious reasons such a meeting could not fail to give him pleasure indeed, he ardently desired it yet on the other hand it was evident that if she recognised him, as she was practically certain to do, he would have to confess his identity, and thus open the floodgates of a constitutional crisis the results of which he shuddered to contemplate. At present the Queen's mother was laid up with a severe bronchial attack, but she might recover any day, and then, as he said to himself, farewell to peace and happiness for HILDEBRAND, the rightful but most unwilling King of HINTERLAND. Meanwhile we will leave him enjoying the emoluments of his office and the society of his daughter, but haunted by the terrible possibilities that might at any moment overwhelm him and the kingdom. Scarcely had the Christmas and New Year festivities been brought to a conclusion when a most severe Ministerial crisis broke out in Hinterland. The party at this time in power had, if we may trust the authorised historians, exhausted their mandate. Their supporters declared them to have conferred absolutely unparalleled benefits on the people; their opponents with equal assurance denounced them as a set of rogues and impostors who had dragged the honour of the country in the dirt and had reduced its former prosperity to the verge of bankruptcy. Be that as it may, they had been defeated on a vote of confidence, and the Prime Minister, having with his colleagues resigned office, was compelled to advise the Queen to send for the leader of the Opposition, and to entrust to him the formation of a new Ministry. "Your Majesty will believe me," he said at the interview which had been granted to him for this purpose, “when I say that I shall always consider it my proudest privilege to have held office when your Majesty graciously came to the throne." "Oh," said SYLVIA, "I couldn't help coming to it, could I? At any rate you were very kind about it, and I shall never forget it. I've wanted to know for some time what it |