“Stand on the lower steps and let them talk to you,” he suggested. “I am going to talk to the Auxiliary Force.”
He walked down the left hand side of the steps as he spoke, while Valona went down the right.
The mothers now realised what she was doing and hurriedly pushed their small children forward to catch her attention.
Soon a large crowd had gathered and the only way Valona could make room for them all was to move back a little further up the steps.
The King returned from shaking hands and meeting the men who had answered his call to arms and found the steps on the other side covered with small children.
Valona was seated on a step holding a little baby in her arms and there were children all round her listening to a fairy story she was telling them.
She did not see the King to b
