{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5676/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5676","id":"gutenberg_5676","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5676","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Fairies -- Juvenile fiction","Fairy tales","Fantasy fiction","Kindness -- Juvenile fiction","Kings and rulers -- Juvenile fiction","Parent and child -- Juvenile fiction","Pride and vanity -- Juvenile fiction","Princesses -- Juvenile fiction","Selfishness -- Juvenile fiction","Women shepherds -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nA Double Story\n\nby George MacDonald\n\nNEW YORK:\n\n\nContents\n\n CHAPTER I.\n CHAPTER II.\n CHAPTER III.\n CHAPTER IV.\n CHAPTER V.\n CHAPTER VI.\n CHAPTER VII.\n CHAPTER VIII.\n CHAPTER IX.\n CHAPTER X.\n CHAPTER XI.\n CHAPTER XII.\n CHAPTER XIII.\n CHAPTER XIV.\n\n\n\n\nA DOUBLE STORY\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nThere was a certain country where things used to go rather oddly. For\ninstance, you could never tell whether it was going to rain or hail, or\nwhether or not the milk was going to turn sour. It was impossible to\nsay whether the next baby would be a boy, or a girl, or even, after he\nwas a week old, whether he would wake sweet-tempered or cross.\n\nIn strict accordance with the peculiar nature of this country of\nuncertainties, it came to pass one day, that in the midst of a shower\nof rain that might well be called golden, seeing the sun, shining as it\nfell, turned all its drops into molten topazes, and every drop was good\nfor a grain of golden corn, or a yellow cowslip, or a buttercup, or a\ndandelion at least;\u2014while this splendid rain was falling, I say, with a\nmusical patter upon the great leaves of the horse-chestnuts, which hung\nlike Vandyke collars about the necks of the creamy, red-spotted\nblossoms, and on the leaves of the sycamores, looking as if they had\nblood in their veins, and on a multitude of flowers, of which some\nstood up and boldly held out their cups to catch their share, while\nothers cowered down, laughing, under the soft patting blows of the\nheavy warm drops;\u2014while this lovely rain was washing all the air clean\nfrom the motes, and the bad odors, and the poison-seeds that had\nescaped from their prisons during the long drought;\u2014while it fell,\nsplashing and sparkling, with a hum, and a rush, and a soft\nclashing\u2014but stop! I am stealing, I find, and not that only, but with\nclumsy hands spoiling what I steal:\u2014\n\n\u201cO Rain! with your dull twofold sound,\nThe clash hard by, and the murmur all round:\u201d\n\n\n\u2014there! take it, Mr. Coleridge;\u2014while, as I was saying, the lovely\nlittle rivers whose fountains are the clouds, and which cut their own\nchannels through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing against their\nbanks as they hurry down and down, until at length they are pulled up\non a sudden, with a musical plash, in the very heart of an odorous\nflower, that first gasps and then sighs up a blissful scent, or on the\nbald head of a stone that never says, Thank you;\u2014while the very sheep\nfelt it blessing them, though it could never reach their skins through\nthe depth of their long wool, and the veriest hedgehog\u2014I mean the one\nwith the longest spikes\u2014came and spiked himself out to impale as many\nof the drops as he could;\u2014while the rain was thus falling, and the\nleaves, and the flowers, and the sheep, and the cattle, and the\nhedgehog, were all busily receiving the golden rain, something\nhappened. It was not a great battle, nor an earthquake, nor a\ncoronation, but something more important than all those put together.\n_A baby-girl was born;_ and her father was a king; and her mother was a\nqueen; and her uncles and aunts were princes and princesses; and her\nfirst-cousins were dukes and duchesses; and not one of her\nsecond-cousins was less than a marquis or marchioness, or of their\nthird-cousins less than an earl or countess: and below a countess they\ndid not care to count. So the little girl was Somebody; and yet for all\nthat, strange to say, the first thing she did was to cry. I told you it\nwas a strange country.\n\nAs she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that\nshe was Somebody; and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it\nthat she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it\nfor a fundamental, innate, primary, first-born, self-evident,\nnecessary, and incontrovertible idea and principle that _she was\nSomebody_. And far be it from me to deny it. I will even go so far as\nto assert that in this odd country there was a huge number of\nSomebodies. Indeed, it was one of its oddities that every boy and girl\nin it, was rather too ready to think he or she was Somebody; and the\nworst of it was that the princess never thought of there being more\nthan one Somebody\u2014and that was herself.\n\nFar away to the north in the same country, on the side of a bleak hill,\nwhere a horse-chestnut or a sycamore was never seen, where were no\nmeadows rich with buttercups, only steep, rough, breezy slopes, covered\nwith dry prickly furze and its flowers of red gold, or moister, softer\nbroom with its flowers of yellow gold, and great sweeps of purple\nheather, mixed with bilberries, and crowberries, and cranberries\u2014no, I\nam all wrong: there was nothing out yet but a few furze-blossoms; the\nrest were all waiting behind their doors till they were called; and no\nfull, slow-gliding river with meadow-sweet along its oozy banks, only a\nlittle brook here and there, that dashed past without a moment to say,\n\u201cHow do you do?\u201d\u2014there (would you believe it?) while the same cloud\nthat was dropping down golden rain all about the queen\u2019s new baby was\ndashing huge fierce handfuls of hail upon the hills, with such force\nthat they flew spinning off the rocks and stones, went burrowing in the\nsheep\u2019s wool, stung the cheeks and chin of the shepherd with their\nsharp spiteful little blows, and made his dog wink and whine as they\nbounded off his hard wise head, and long sagacious nose; only, when\nthey dropped plump down the chimney, and fell hissing in the little\nfire, they caught it then, for the clever little fire soon sent them up\nthe chimney again, a good deal swollen, and harmless enough for a\nwhile, there (what do you think?) among the hailstones, and the\nheather, and the cold mountain air, another little girl was born, whom\nthe shepherd her father, and the shepherdess her mother, and a good\nmany of her kindred too, thought Somebody. She had not an uncle or an\naunt that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid, not a cousin, that was\nless than a farm-laborer, not a second-cousin that was less than a\ngrocer, and they did not count farther. And yet (would you believe it?)\nshe too cried the very first thing. It _was_ an odd country! And, what\nis still more surprising, the shepherd and shepherdess and the\ndairymaids and the laborers were not a bit wiser than the king and the\nqueen and the dukes and the marquises and the earls; for they too, one\nand all, so constantly taught the little woman that she was Somebody,\nthat she also forgot that there were a great many more Somebodies\nbesides herself in the world.\n\nIt was, indeed, a peculiar country, very different from ours\u2014so\ndifferent, that my reader must not be too much surprised when I add the\namazing fact, that most of its inhabitants, instead of enjoying the\nthings they had, were always wanting the things they had not, often\neven the things it was least likely they ever could have. The grown men\nand women being like this, there is no reason to be further astonished\nthat the Princess Rosamond\u2014the name her parents gave her because it\nmeans _Rose of the World_\u2014should grow up like them, wanting every thing\nshe could and every thing she couldn\u2019t have. The things she could have\nwere a great many too many, for her foolish parents always gave her\nwhat they could; but still there remained a few things they couldn\u2019t\ngive her, for they were only a common king and queen. They could and\ndid give her a lighted candle when she cried for it, and managed by\nmuch care that she should not burn her fingers or set her frock on\nfire; but when she cried for the moon, that they could not give her.\nThey did the worst thing possible, instead, however; for they pretended\nto do what they could not. They got her a thin disc of brilliantly\npolished silver, as near the size of the moon as they could agree upon;\nand, for a time she was delighted.\n\nBut, unfortunately, one evening she made the discovery that her moon\nwas a little peculiar, inasmuch as she could not shine in the dark. Her\nnurse happened to snuff out the candles as she was playing with it; and\ninstantly came a shriek of rage, for her moon had vanished. Presently,\nthrough the opening of the curtains, she caught sight of the real moon,\nfar away in the sky, and shining quite calmly, as if she had been there\nall the time; and her rage increased to such a degree that if it had\nnot passed off in a fit, I do not know what might have come of it.\n\nAs she grew up it was still the same, with this difference, that not\nonly must she have every thing, but she got tired of every thing almost\nas soon as she had it. There was an accumulation of things in her\nnursery and schoolroom and bedroom that was perfectly appalling. Her\nmother\u2019s wardrobes were almost useless to her, so packed were they with\nthings of which she never took any notice. When she was five years old,\nthey gave her a splendid gold repeater, so close set with diamonds and\nrubies, that the back was just one crust of gems. In one of her little\ntempers, as they called her hideously ugly rages, she dashed it against\nthe back of the chimney, after which it never gave a single tick; and\nsome of the diamonds went to the ash-pit. As she grew older still, she\nbecame fond of animals, not in a way that brought them much pleasure,\nor herself much satisfaction. When angry, she would beat them, and try\nto pull them to pieces, and as soon as she became a little used to\nthem, would neglect them altogether. Then, if they could, they would\nrun away, and she was furious. Some white mice, which she had ceased\nfeeding altogether, did so; and soon the palace was swarming with white\nmice. Their red eyes might be seen glowing, and their white skins\ngleaming, in every dark corner; but when it came to the king\u2019s finding\na nest of them in his second-best crown, he was angry and ordered them\nto be drowned. The princess heard of it, however, and raised such a\nclamor, that there they were left until they should run away of\nthemselves; and the poor king had to wear his best crown every day till\nthen. Nothing that was the princess\u2019s property, whether she cared for\nit or not, was to be meddled with.\n\nOf course, as she grew, she grew worse; for she never tried to grow\nbetter. She became more and more peevish and fretful every\nday\u2014dissatisfied not only with what she had, but with all that was\naround her, and constantly wishing things in general to be different.\nShe found fault with every thing and everybody, and all that happened,\nand grew more and more disagreeable to every one who had to do with\nher. At last, when she had nearly killed her nurse, and had all but\nsucceeded in hanging herself, and was miserable from morning to night,\nher parents thought it time to do something.\n\nA long way from the palace, in the heart of a deep wood of pine-trees,\nlived a wise woman. In some countries she would have been called a\nwitch; but that would have been a mistake, for she never did any thing\nwicked, and had more power than any witch could have. As her fame was\nspread through all the country, the king heard of her; and, thinking\nshe might perhaps be able to suggest something, sent for her. In the\ndead of the night, lest the princess should know it, the king\u2019s\nmessenger brought into the palace a tall woman, muffled from head to\nfoot in a cloak of black cloth. In the presence of both their\nMajesties, the king, to do her honor, requested her to sit; but she\ndeclined, and stood waiting to hear what they had to say. Nor had she\nto wait long, for almost instantly they began to tell her the dreadful\ntrouble they were in with their only child; first the king talking,\nthen the queen interposing with some yet more dreadful fact, and at\ntimes both letting out a torrent of words together, so anxious were\nthey to show the wise woman that their perplexity was real, and their\ndaughter a very terrible one. For a long while there appeared no sign\nof approaching pause. But the wise woman stood patiently folded in her\nblack cloak, and listened without word or motion. At length silence\nfell; for they had talked themselves tired, and could not think of any\nthing more to add to the list of their child\u2019s enormities.\n\nAfter a minute, the wise woman unfolded her arms; and her cloak\ndropping open in front, disclosed a garment made of a strange stuff,\nwhich an old poet who knew her well has thus described:\u2014\n\n\u201cAll lilly white, withoutten spot or pride,\nThat seemd like silke and silver woven neare;\nBut neither silke nor silver therein did appeare.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cHow very badly you have treated her!\u201d said the wise woman. \u201cPoor\nchild!\u201d\n\n\u201cTreated her badly?\u201d gasped the king.\n\n\u201cShe is a very wicked child,\u201d said the queen; and both glared with\nindignation.\n\n\u201cYes, indeed!\u201d returned the wise woman. \u201cShe is very naughty indeed,\nand that she must be made to feel; but it is half your fault too.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d stammered the king. \u201cHaven\u2019t we given her every mortal thing\nshe wanted?\u201d\n\n\u201cSurely,\u201d said the wise woman: \u201cwhat else could have all but killed\nher? You should have given her a few things of the other sort. But you\nare far too dull to understand me.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are very polite,\u201d remarked the king, with royal sarcasm on his\nthin, straight lips.\n\nThe wise woman made no answer beyond a deep sigh; and the king and\nqueen sat silent also in their anger, glaring at the wise woman. The\nsilence lasted again for a minute, and then the wise woman folded her\ncloak around her, and her shining garment vanished like the moon when a\ngreat cloud comes over her. Yet another minute passed and the silence\nendured, for the smouldering wrath of the king and queen choked the\nchannels of their speech. Then the wise woman turned her back on them,\nand so stood. At this, the rage of the king broke forth; and he cried\nto the queen, stammering in his fierceness,\u2014\n\n\u201cHow should such an old hag as that teach Rosamond good manners? She\nknows nothing of them herself! Look how she stands!\u2014actually with her\nback to us.\u201d\n\nAt the word the wise woman walked from the room. The great folding\ndoors fell to behind her; and the same moment the king and queen were\nquarrelling like apes as to which of them was to blame for her\ndeparture. Before their altercation was over, for it lasted till the\nearly morning, in rushed Rosamond, clutching in her hand a poor little\nwhite rabbit, of which she was very fond, and from which, only because\nit would not come to her when she called it, she was pulling handfuls\nof fur in the attempt to tear the squealing, pink-eared, red-eyed thing\nto pieces.\n\n\u201cRosa, Rosa_mond!_\u201d cried the queen; whereupon Rosamond threw the\nrabbit in her mother\u2019s face. The king started up in a fury, and ran to\nseize her. She darted shrieking from the room. The king rushed after\nher; but, to his amazement, she was nowhere to be seen: the huge hall\nwas empty.\u2014No: just outside the door, close to the threshold, with her\nback to it, sat the figure of the wise woman, muffled in her dark\ncloak, with her head bowed over her knees. As the king stood looking at\nher, she rose slowly, crossed the hall, and walked away down the marble\nstaircase. The king called to her; but she never turned her head, or\ngave the least sign that she heard him. So quietly did she pass down\nthe wide marble stair, that the king was all but persuaded he had seen\nonly a shadow gliding across the white steps.\n\nFor the princess, she was nowhere to be found. The queen went into\nhysterics; and the rabbit ran away. The king sent out messengers in\nevery direction, but in vain.\n\nIn a short time the palace was quiet\u2014as quiet as it used to be before\nthe princess was born. The king and queen cried a little now and then,\nfor the hearts of parents were in that country strangely fashioned; and\nyet I am afraid the first movement of those very hearts would have been\na jump of terror if the ears above them had heard the voice of Rosamond\nin one of the corridors. As for the rest of the household, they could\nnot have made up a single tear amongst them. They thought, whatever it\nmight be for the princess, it was, for every one else, the best thing\nthat could have happened; and as to what had become of her, if their\nheads were puzzled, their hearts took no interest in the question. The\nlord-chancellor alone had an idea about it, but he was far too wise to\nutter it.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThe fact, as is plain, was, that the princess had disappeared in the\nfolds of the wise woman\u2019s cloak. When she rushed from the room, the\nwise woman caught her to her bosom and flung the black garment around\nher. The princess struggled wildly, for she was in fierce terror, and\nscreamed as loud as choking fright would permit her; but her father,\nstanding in the door, and looking down upon the wise woman, saw never a\nmovement of the cloak, so tight was she held by her captor. He was\nindeed aware of a most angry crying, which reminded him of his\ndaughter; but it sounded to him so far away, that he took it for the\npassion of some child in the street, outside the palace-gates. Hence,\nunchallenged, the wise woman carried the princess down the marble\nstairs, out at the palace-door, down a great flight of steps outside,\nacross a paved court, through the brazen gates, along half-roused\nstreets where people were opening their shops, through the huge gates\nof the city, and out into the wide road, vanishing northwards; the\nprincess struggling and screaming all the time, and the wise woman\nholding her tight. When at length she was too tired to struggle or\nscream any more, the wise woman unfolded her cloak, and set her down;\nand the princess saw the light and opened her swollen eyelids. There\nwas nothing in sight that she had ever seen before. City and palace had\ndisappeared. They were upon a wide road going straight on, with a ditch\non each side of it, that behind them widened into the great moat\nsurrounding the city. She cast up a terrified look into the wise\nwoman\u2019s face, that gazed down upon her gravely and kindly. Now the\nprincess did not in the least understand kindness. She always took it\nfor a sign either of partiality or fear. So when the wise woman looked\nkindly upon her, she rushed at her, butting with her head like a ram:\nbut the folds of the cloak had closed around the wise woman; and, when\nthe princess ran against it, she found it hard as the cloak of a bronze\nstatue, and fell back upon the road with a great bruise on her head.\nThe wise woman lifted her again, and put her once more under the cloak,\nwhere she fell asleep, and where she awoke again only to find that she\nwas still being carried on and on.\n\nWhen at length the wise woman again stopped and set her down, she saw\naround her a bright moonlit night, on a wide heath, solitary and\nhouseless. Here she felt more frightened than before; nor was her\nterror assuaged when, looking up, she saw a stern, immovable\ncountenance, with cold eyes fixedly regarding her. All she knew of the\nworld being derived from nursery-tales, she concluded that the wise\nwoman was an ogress, carrying her home to eat her.\n\nI have already said that the princess was, at this time of her life,\nsuch a low-minded creature, that severity had greater influence over\nher than kindness. She understood terror better far than tenderness.\nWhen the wise woman looked at her thus, she fell on her knees, and held\nup her hands to her, crying,\u2014\n\n\u201cOh, don\u2019t eat me! don\u2019t eat me!\u201d\n\nNow this being the best _she_ could do, it was a sign she was a low\ncreature. Think of it\u2014to kick at kindness, and kneel from terror. But\nthe sternness on the face of the wise woman came from the same heart\nand the same feeling as the kindness that had shone from it before. The\nonly thing that could save the princess from her hatefulness, was that\nshe should be made to mind somebody else than her own miserable\nSomebody.\n\nWithout saying a word, the wise woman reached down her hand, took one\nof Rosamond\u2019s, and, lifting her to her feet, led her along through the\nmoonlight. Every now and then a gush of obstinacy would well up in the\nheart of the princess, and she would give a great ill-tempered tug, and\npull her hand away; but then the wise woman would gaze down upon her\nwith such a look, that she instantly sought again the hand she had\nrejected, in pure terror lest she should be eaten upon the spot. And so\nthey would walk on again; and when the wind blew the folds of the cloak\nagainst the princess, she found them soft as her mother\u2019s camel-hair\nshawl.\n\nAfter a little while the wise woman began to sing to her, and the\nprincess could not help listening; for the soft wind amongst the low\ndry bushes of the heath, the rustle of their own steps, and the\ntrailing of the wise woman\u2019s cloak, were the only sounds beside.\n\nAnd this is the song she sang:\u2014\n\n    Out in the cold,\n    With a thin-worn fold\n    Of withered gold\n    Around her rolled,\nHangs in the air the weary moon.\n    She is old, old, old;\n    And her bones all cold,\n    And her tales all told,\n    And her things all sold,\nAnd she has no breath to croon.\n\n\n    Like a castaway clout,\n    She is quite shut out!\n    She might call and shout,\n    But no one about\nWould ever call back, \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d\n    There is never a hut,\n    Not a door to shut,\n    Not a footpath or rut,\n    Long road or short cut,\nLeading to anywhere!\n\n\n    She is all alone\n    Like a dog-picked bone,\n    The poor old crone!\n    She fain would groan,\nBut she cannot find the breath.\n    She once had a fire;\n    But she built it no higher,\n    And only sat nigher\n    Till she saw it expire;\nAnd now she is cold as death.\n\n\n    She never will smile\n    All the lonesome while.\n    Oh the mile after mile,\n    And never a stile!\nAnd never a tree or a stone!\n    She has not a tear:\n    Afar and anear\n    It is all so drear,\n    But she does not care,\nHer heart is as dry as a bone.\n\n\n    None to come near her!\n    No one to cheer her!\n    No one to jeer her!\n    No one to hear her!\nNot a thing to lift and hold!\n    She is always awake,\n    But her heart will not break:\n    She can only quake,\n    Shiver, and shake:\nThe old woman is very cold.\n\n\nAs strange as the song, was the crooning wailing tune that the wise\nwoman sung. At the first note almost, you would have thought she wanted\nto frighten the princess; and so indeed she did. For when people _will_\nbe naughty, they have to be frightened, and they are not expected to\nlike it. The princess grew angry, pulled her hand away, and cried,\u2014\n\n\u201c_You_ are the ugly old woman. I hate you!\u201d\n\nTherewith she stood still, expecting the wise woman to stop also,\nperhaps coax her to go on: if she did, she was determined not to move a\nstep. But the wise woman never even looked about: she kept walking on\nsteadily, the same pace as before. Little Obstinate thought for certain\nshe would turn; for she regarded herself as much too precious to be\nleft behind. But on and on the wise woman went, until she had vanished\naway in the dim moonlight. Then all at once the princess perceived that\nshe was left alone with the moon, looking down on her from the height\nof her loneliness. She was horribly frightened, and began to run after\nthe wise woman, calling aloud. But the song she had just heard came\nback to the sound of her own running feet,\u2014\n\nAll all alone,\nLike a dog-picked bone!\n\n\nand again,\u2014\n\n    She might call and shout,\n    And no one about\nWould ever call back, \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d\n\n\nand she screamed as she ran. How she wished she knew the old woman\u2019s\nname, that she might call it after her through the moonlight!\n\nBut the wise woman had, in truth, heard the first sound of her running\nfeet, and stopped and turned, waiting. What with running and crying,\nhowever, and a fall or two as she ran, the princess never saw her until\nshe fell right into her arms\u2014and the same moment into a fresh rage; for\nas soon as any trouble was over the princess was always ready to begin\nanother. The wise woman therefore pushed her away, and walked on; while\nthe princess ran scolding and storming after her. She had to run till,\nfrom very fatigue, her rudeness ceased. Her heart gave way; she burst\ninto tears, and ran on silently weeping.\n\nA minute more and the wise woman stooped, and lifting her in her arms,\nfolded her cloak around her. Instantly she fell asleep, and slept as\nsoft and as soundly as if she had been in her own bed. She slept till\nthe moon went down; she slept till the sun rose up; she slept till he\nclimbed the topmost sky; she slept till he went down again, and the\npoor old moon came peaking and peering out once more: and all that time\nthe wise woman went walking on and on very fast. And now they had\nreached a spot where a few fir-trees came to meet them through the\nmoonlight.\n\nAt the same time the princess awaked, and popping her head out between\nthe folds of the wise woman\u2019s cloak\u2014a very ugly little owlet she\nlooked\u2014saw that they were entering the wood. Now there is something\nawful about every wood, especially in the moonlight; and perhaps a\nfir-wood is more awful than other woods. For one thing, it lets a\nlittle more light through, rendering the darkness a little more\nvisible, as it were; and then the trees go stretching away up towards\nthe moon, and look as if they cared nothing about the creatures below\nthem\u2014not like the broad trees with soft wide leaves that, in the\ndarkness even, look sheltering. So the princess is not to be blamed\nthat she was very much frightened. She is hardly to be blamed either\nthat, assured the wise woman was an ogress carrying her to her castle\nto eat her up, she began again to kick and scream violently, as those\nof my readers who are of the same sort as herself will consider the\nright and natural thing to do. The wrong in her was this\u2014that she had\nled such a bad life, that she did not know a good woman when she saw\nher; took her for one like herself, even after she had slept in her\narms.\n\nImmediately the wise woman set her down, and, walking on, within a few\npaces vanished among the trees. Then the cries of the princess rent the\nair, but the fir-trees never heeded her; not one of their hard little\nneedles gave a single shiver for all the noise she made. But there were\ncreatures in the forest who were soon quite as much interested in her\ncries as the fir-trees were indifferent to them. They began to hearken\nand howl and snuff about, and run hither and thither, and grin with\ntheir white teeth, and light up the green lamps in their eyes. In a\nminute or two a whole army of wolves and hyenas were rushing from all\nquarters through the pillar like stems of the fir-trees, to the place\nwhere she stood calling them, without knowing it. The noise she made\nherself, however, prevented her from hearing either their howls or the\nsoft pattering of their many trampling feet as they bounded over the\nfallen fir needles and cones.\n\nOne huge old wolf had outsped the rest\u2014not that he could run faster,\nbut that from experience he could more exactly judge whence the cries\ncame, and as he shot through the wood, she caught sight at last of his\nlamping eyes coming swiftly nearer and nearer. Terror silenced her. She\nstood with her mouth open, as if she were going to eat the wolf, but\nshe had no breath to scream with, and her tongue curled up in her mouth\nlike a withered and frozen leaf. She could do nothing but stare at the\ncoming monster. And now he was taking a few shorter bounds, measuring\nthe distance for the one final leap that should bring him upon her,\nwhen out stepped the wise woman from behind the very tree by which she\nhad set the princess down, caught the wolf by the throat half-way in\nhis last spring, shook him once, and threw him from her dead. Then she\nturned towards the princess, who flung herself into her arms, and was\ninstantly lapped in the folds of her cloak.\n\nBut now the huge army of wolves and hyenas had rushed like a sea around\nthem, whose waves leaped with hoarse roar and hollow yell up against\nthe wise woman. But she, like a strong stately vessel, moved unhurt\nthrough the midst of them. Ever as they leaped against her cloak, they\ndropped and slunk away back through the crowd. Others ever succeeded,\nand ever in their turn fell, and drew back confounded. For some time\nshe walked on attended and assailed on all sides by the howling pack.\nSuddenly they turned and swept away, vanishing in the depths of the\nforest. She neither slackened nor hastened her step, but went walking\non as before.\n\nIn a little while she unfolded her cloak, and let the princess look\nout. The firs had ceased; and they were on a lofty height of moorland,\nstony and bare and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants\nhere and there. About the heath, on every side, lay the forest, looking\nin the moonlight like a cloud; and above the forest, like the shaven\ncrown of a monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking.\nPresently, a little way in front of them, the princess espied a\nwhitewashed cottage, gleaming in the moon. As they came nearer, she saw\nthat the roof was covered with thatch, over which the moss had grown\ngreen. It was a very simple, humble place, not in the least terrible to\nlook at, and yet, as soon as she saw it, her fear again awoke, and\nalways, as soon as her fear awoke, the trust of the princess fell into\na dead sleep. Foolish and useless as she might by this time have known\nit, she once more began kicking and screaming, whereupon, yet once\nmore, the wise woman set her down on the heath, a few yards from the\nback of the cottage, and saying only, \u201cNo one ever gets into my house\nwho does not knock at the door, and ask to come in,\u201d disappeared round\nthe corner of the cottage, leaving the princess alone with the moon\u2014two\nwhite faces in the cone of the night.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThe moon stared at the princess, and the princess stared at the moon;\nbut the moon had the best of it, and the princess began to cry. And now\nthe question was between the moon and the cottage. The princess thought\nshe knew the worst of the moon, and she knew nothing at all about the\ncottage, therefore she would stay with the moon. Strange, was it not,\nthat she should have been so long with the wise woman, and yet know\n_nothing_ about that cottage? As for the moon, she did not by any means\nknow the worst of her, or even, that, if she were to fall asleep where\nshe could find her, the old witch would certainly do her best to twist\nher face.\n\nBut she had scarcely sat a moment longer before she was assailed by all\nsorts of fresh fears. First of all, the soft wind blowing gently\nthrough the dry stalks of the heather and its thousands of little bells\nraised a sweet rustling, which the princess took for the hissing of\nserpents, for you know she had been naughty for so long that she could\nnot in a great many things tell the good from the bad. Then nobody\ncould deny that there, all round about the heath, like a ring of\ndarkness, lay the gloomy fir-wood, and the princess knew what it was\nfull of, and every now and then she thought she heard the howling of\nits wolves and hyenas. And who could tell but some of them might break\nfrom their covert and sweep like a shadow across the heath? Indeed, it\nwas not once nor twice that for a moment she was fully persuaded she\nsaw a great beast coming leaping and bounding through the moonlight to\nhave her all to himself. She did not know that not a single evil\ncreature dared set foot on that heath, or that, if one should do so, it\nwould that instant wither up and cease. If an army of them had rushed\nto invade it, it would have melted away on the edge of it, and ceased\nlike a dying wave.\u2014She even imagined that the moon was slowly coming\nnearer and nearer down the sky to take her and freeze her to death in\nher arms. The wise woman, too, she felt sure, although her cottage\nlooked asleep, was watching her at some little window. In this,\nhowever, she would have been quite right, if she had only imagined\nenough\u2014namely, that the wise woman was watching _over_ her from the\nlittle window. But after all, somehow, the thought of the wise woman\nwas less frightful than that of any of her other terrors, and at length\nshe began to wonder whether it might not turn out that she was no\nogress, but only a rude, ill-bred, tyrannical, yet on the whole not\naltogether ill-meaning person. Hardly had the possibility arisen in her\nmind, before she was on her feet: if the woman was any thing short of\nan ogress, her cottage must be better than that horrible loneliness,\nwith nothing in all the world but a stare; and even an ogress had at\nleast the shape and look of a human being.\n\nShe darted round the end of the cottage to find the front. But, to her\nsurprise, she came only to another back, for no door was to be seen.\nShe tried the farther end, but still no door. She must have passed it\nas she ran\u2014but no\u2014neither in gable nor in side was any to be found.\n\nA cottage without a door!\u2014she rushed at it in a rage and kicked at the\nwall with her feet. But the wall was hard as iron, and hurt her sadly\nthrough her gay silken slippers. She threw herself on the heath, which\ncame up to the walls of the cottage on every side, and roared and\nscreamed with rage. Suddenly, however, she remembered how her screaming\nhad brought the horde of wolves and hyenas about her in the forest,\nand, ceasing at once, lay still, gazing yet again at the moon. And then\ncame the thought of her parents in the palace at home. In her mind\u2019s\neye she saw her mother sitting at her embroidery with the tears\ndropping upon it, and her father staring into the fire as if he were\nlooking for her in its glowing caverns. It is true that if they had\nboth been in tears by her side because of her naughtiness, she would\nnot have cared a straw; but now her own forlorn condition somehow\nhelped her to understand their grief at having lost her, and not only a\ngreat longing to be back in her comfortable home, but a feeble flutter\nof genuine love for her parents awoke in her heart as well, and she\nburst into real tears\u2014soft, mournful tears\u2014very different from those of\nrage and disappointment to which she was so much used. And another very\nremarkable thing was that the moment she began to love her father and\nmother, she began to wish to see the wise woman again. The idea of her\nbeing an ogress vanished utterly, and she thought of her only as one to\ntake her in from the moon, and the loneliness, and the terrors of the\nforest-haunted heath, and hide her in a cottage with not even a door\nfor the horrid wolves to howl against.\n\nBut the old woman\u2014as the princess called her, not knowing that her real\nname was the Wise Woman\u2014had told her that she must knock at the door:\nhow was she to do that when there was no door? But again she bethought\nherself\u2014that, if she could not do all she was told, she could, at\nleast, do a part of it: if she could not knock at the door, she could\nat least knock\u2014say on the wall, for there was nothing else to knock\nupon\u2014and perhaps the old woman would hear her, and lift her in by some\nwindow. Thereupon, she rose at once to her feet, and picking up a\nstone, began to knock on the wall with it. A loud noise was the result,\nand she found she was knocking on the very door itself. For a moment\nshe feared the old woman would be offended, but the next, there came a\nvoice, saying,\n\n\u201cWho is there?\u201d\n\nThe princess answered,\n\n\u201cPlease, old woman, I did not mean to knock so loud.\u201d\n\nTo this there came no reply.\n\nThen the princess knocked again, this time with her knuckles, and the\nvoice came again, saying,\n\n\u201cWho is there?\u201d\n\nAnd the princess answered,\n\n\u201cRosamond.\u201d\n\nThen a second time there was silence. But the princess soon ventured to\nknock a third time.\n\n\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d said the voice.\n\n\u201cOh, please, let me in!\u201d said the princess.\n\n\u201cThe moon will keep staring at me; and I hear the wolves in the wood.\u201d\n\nThen the door opened, and the princess entered. She looked all around,\nbut saw nothing of the wise woman.\n\nIt was a single bare little room, with a white deal table, and a few\nold wooden chairs, a fire of fir-wood on the hearth, the smoke of which\nsmelt sweet, and a patch of thick-growing heath in one corner. Poor as\nit was, compared to the grand place Rosamond had left, she felt no\nlittle satisfaction as she shut the door, and looked around her. And\nwhat with the sufferings and terrors she had left outside, the new kind\nof tears she had shed, the love she had begun to feel for her parents,\nand the trust she had begun to place in the wise woman, it seemed to\nher as if her soul had grown larger of a sudden, and she had left the\ndays of her childishness and naughtiness far behind her. People are so\nready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is\nchanged! Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine day, will be\nill-tempered when it rains: their selves are just the same both days;\nonly in the one case, the fine weather has got into them, in the other\nthe rainy. Rosamond, as she sat warming herself by the glow of the\npeat-fire, turning over in her mind all that had passed, and feeling\nhow pleasant the change in her feelings was, began by degrees to think\nhow very good she had grown, and how very good she was to have grown\ngood, and how extremely good she must always have been that she was\nable to grow so very good as she now felt she had grown; and she became\nso absorbed in her self-admiration as never to notice either that the\nfire was dying, or that a heap of fir-cones lay in a corner near it.\nSuddenly, a great wind came roaring down the chimney, and scattered the\nashes about the floor; a tremendous rain followed, and fell hissing on\nthe embers; the moon was swallowed up, and there was darkness all about\nher. Then a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder, so\nterrified the princess, that she cried aloud for the old woman, but\nthere came no answer to her cry.\n\nThen in her terror the princess grew angry, and saying to herself, \u201cShe\nmust be somewhere in the place, else who was there to open the door to\nme?\u201d began to shout and yell, and call the wise woman all the bad names\nshe had been in the habit of throwing at her nurses. But there came not\na single sound in reply.\n\nStrange to say, the princess never thought of telling herself now how\nnaughty she was, though that would surely have been reasonable. On the\ncontrary, she thought she had a perfect right to be angry, for was she\nnot most desperately ill used\u2014and a princess too? But the wind howled\non, and the rain kept pouring down the chimney, and every now and then\nthe lightning burst out, and the thunder rushed after it, as if the\ngreat lumbering sound could ever think to catch up with the swift\nlight!\n\nAt length the princess had again grown so angry, frightened, and\nmiserable, all together, that she jumped up and hurried about the\ncottage with outstretched arms, trying to find the wise woman. But\nbeing in a bad temper always makes people stupid, and presently she\nstruck her forehead such a blow against something\u2014she thought herself\nit felt like the old woman\u2019s cloak\u2014that she fell back\u2014not on the floor,\nthough, but on the patch of heather, which felt as soft and pleasant as\nany bed in the palace. There, worn out with weeping and rage, she soon\nfell fast asleep.\n\nShe dreamed that she was the old cold woman up in the sky, with no home\nand no friends, and no nothing at all, not even a pocket; wandering,\nwandering forever, over a desert of blue sand, never to get to\nanywhere, and never to lie down or die. It was no use stopping to look\nabout her, for what had she to do but forever look about her as she\nwent on and on and on\u2014never seeing any thing, and never expecting to\nsee any thing! The only shadow of a hope she had was, that she might by\nslow degrees grow thinner and thinner, until at last she wore away to\nnothing at all; only alas! she could not detect the least sign that she\nhad yet begun to grow thinner. The hopelessness grew at length so\nunendurable that she woke with a start. Seeing the face of the wise\nwoman bending over her, she threw her arms around her neck and held up\nher mouth to be kissed. And the kiss of the wise woman was like the\nrose-gardens of Damascus.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nThe wise woman lifted her tenderly, and washed and dressed her far more\ncarefully than even her nurse. Then she set her down by the fire, and\nprepared her breakfast. The princess was very hungry, and the bread and\nmilk as good as it could be, so that she thought she had never in her\nlife eaten any thing nicer. Nevertheless, as soon as she began to have\nenough, she said to herself,\u2014\n\n\u201cHa! I see how it is! The old woman wants to fatten me! That is why she\ngives me such nice creamy milk. She doesn\u2019t kill me now because she\u2019s\ngoing to kill me then! She _is_ an ogress, after all!\u201d\n\nThereupon she laid down her spoon, and would not eat another\nmouthful\u2014only followed the basin with longing looks, as the wise woman\ncarried it away.\n\nWhen she stopped eating, her hostess knew exactly what she was\nthinking; but it was one thing to understand the princess, and quite\nanother to make the princess understand her: that would require time.\nFor the present she took no notice, but went about the affairs of the\nhouse, sweeping the floor, brushing down the cobwebs, cleaning the\nhearth, dusting the table and chairs, and watering the bed to keep it\nfresh and alive\u2014for she never had more than one guest at a time, and\nnever would allow that guest to go to sleep upon any thing that had no\nlife in it. All the time she was thus busied, she spoke not a word to\nthe princess, which, with the princess, went to confirm her notion of\nher purposes. But whatever she might have said would have been only\nperverted by the princess into yet stronger proof of her evil designs,\nfor a fancy in her own head would outweigh any multitude of facts in\nanother\u2019s. She kept staring at the fire, and never looked round to see\nwhat the wise woman might be doing.\n\nBy and by she came close up to the back of her chair, and said,\n\n\u201cRosamond!\u201d\n\nBut the princess had fallen into one of her sulky moods, and shut\nherself up with her own ugly Somebody; so she never looked round or\neven answered the wise woman.\n\n\u201cRosamond,\u201d she repeated, \u201cI am going out. If you are a good girl, that\nis, if you do as I tell you, I will carry you back to your father and\nmother the moment I return.\u201d\n\nThe princess did not take the least notice.\n\n\u201cLook at me, Rosamond,\u201d said the wise woman.\n\nBut Rosamond never moved\u2014never even shrugged her shoulders\u2014perhaps\nbecause they were already up to her ears, and could go no farther.\n\n\u201cI want to help you to do what I tell you,\u201d said the wise woman. \u201cLook\nat me.\u201d\n\nStill Rosamond was motionless and silent, saying only to herself,\n\n\u201cI know what she\u2019s after! She wants to show me her horrid teeth. But I\nwon\u2019t look. I\u2019m not going to be frightened out of my senses to please\nher.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou had better look, Rosamond. Have you forgotten how you kissed me\nthis morning?\u201d\n\nBut Rosamond now regarded that little throb of affection as a momentary\nweakness into which the deceitful ogress had betrayed her, and almost\ndespised herself for it. She was one of those who the more they are\ncoaxed are the more disagreeable. For such, the wise woman had an awful\npunishment, but she remembered that the princess had been very ill\nbrought up, and therefore wished to try her with all gentleness first.\n\nShe stood silent for a moment, to see what effect her words might have.\nBut Rosamond only said to herself,\u2014\n\n\u201cShe wants to fatten and eat me.\u201d\n\nAnd it was such a little while since she had looked into the wise\nwoman\u2019s loving eyes, thrown her arms round her neck, and kissed her!\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the wise woman gently, after pausing as long as it seemed\npossible she might bethink herself, \u201cI must tell you then without; only\nwhoever listens with her back turned, listens but half, and gets but\nhalf the help.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe wants to fatten me,\u201d said the princess.\n\n\u201cYou must keep the cottage tidy while I am out. When I come back, I\nmust see the fire bright, the hearth swept, and the kettle boiling; no\ndust on the table or chairs, the windows clear, the floor clean, and\nthe heather in blossom\u2014which last comes of sprinkling it with water\nthree times a day. When you are hungry, put your hand into that hole in\nthe wall, and you will find a meal.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe wants to fatten me,\u201d said the princess.\n\n\u201cBut on no account leave the house till I come back,\u201d continued the\nwise woman, \u201cor you will grievously repent it. Remember what you have\nalready gone through to reach it. Dangers lie all around this cottage\nof mine; but inside, it is the safest place\u2014in fact the only quite safe\nplace in all the country.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe means to eat me,\u201d said the princess, \u201cand therefore wants to\nfrighten me from running away.\u201d\n\nShe heard the voice no more. Then, suddenly startled at the thought of\nbeing alone, she looked hastily over her shoulder. The cottage was\nindeed empty of all visible life. It was soundless, too: there was not\neven a ticking clock or a flapping flame. The fire burned still and\nsmouldering-wise; but it was all the company she had, and she turned\nagain to stare into it.\n\nSoon she began to grow weary of having nothing to do. Then she\nremembered that the old woman, as she called her, had told her to keep\nthe house tidy.\n\n\u201cThe miserable little pig-sty!\u201d she said. \u201cWhere\u2019s the use of keeping\nsuch a hovel clean!\u201d\n\nBut in truth she would have been glad of the employment, only just\nbecause she had been told to do it, she was unwilling; for there _are_\npeople\u2014however unlikely it may seem\u2014who object to doing a thing for no\nother reason than that it is required of them.\n\n\u201cI am a princess,\u201d she said, \u201cand it is very improper to ask me to do\nsuch a thing.\u201d\n\nShe might have judged it quite as suitable for a princess to sweep away\nthe dust as to sit the centre of a world of dirt. But just because she\nought, she wouldn\u2019t. Perhaps she feared that if she gave in to doing\nher duty once, she might have to do it always\u2014which was true enough\u2014for\nthat was the very thing for which she had been specially born.\n\nUnable, however, to feel quite comfortable in the resolve to neglect\nit, she said to herself, \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019s time enough for such a nasty\njob as that!\u201d and sat on, watching the fire as it burned away, the\nglowing red casting off white flakes, and sinking lower and lower on\nthe hearth.\n\nBy and by, merely for want of something to do, she would see what the\nold woman had left for her in the hole of the wall. But when she put in\nher hand she found nothing there, except the dust which she ought by\nthis time to have wiped away. Never reflecting that the wise woman had\ntold her she would find food there _when she was hungry_, she flew into\none of her furies, calling her a cheat, and a thief, and a liar, and an\nugly old witch, and an ogress, and I do not know how many wicked names\nbesides. She raged until she was quite exhausted, and then fell fast\nasleep on her chair. When she awoke the fire was out.\n\nBy this time she was hungry; but without looking in the hole, she began\nagain to storm at the wise woman, in which labor she would no doubt\nhave once more exhausted herself, had not something white caught her\neye: it was the corner of a napkin hanging from the hole in the wall.\nShe bounded to it, and there was a dinner for her of something\nstrangely good\u2014one of her favorite dishes, only better than she had\never tasted it before. This might surely have at least changed her mood\ntowards the wise woman; but she only grumbled to herself that it was as\nit ought to be, ate up the food, and lay down on the bed, never\nthinking of fire, or dust, or water for the heather.\n\nThe wind began to moan about the cottage, and grew louder and louder,\ntill a great gust came down the chimney, and again scattered the white\nashes all over the place. But the princess was by this time fast\nasleep, and never woke till the wind had sunk to silence. One of the\nconsequences, however, of sleeping when one ought to be awake is waking\nwhen one ought to be asleep; and the princess awoke in the black\nmidnight, and found enough to keep her awake. For although the wind had\nfallen, there was a far more terrible howling than that of the wildest\nwind all about the cottage. Nor was the howling all; the air was full\nof strange cries; and everywhere she heard the noise of claws\nscratching against the house, which seemed all doors and windows, so\ncrowded were the sounds, and from so many directions. All the night\nlong she lay half swooning, yet listening to the hideous noises. But\nwith the first glimmer of morning they ceased.\n\nThen she said to herself, \u201cHow fortunate it was that I woke! They would\nhave eaten me up if I had been asleep.\u201d The miserable little wretch\nactually talked as if she had kept them out! If she had done her work\nin the day, she would have slept through the terrors of the darkness,\nand awaked fearless; whereas now, she had in the storehouse of her\nheart a whole harvest of agonies, reaped from the dun fields of the\nnight!\n\nThey were neither wolves nor hyenas which had caused her such dismay,\nbut creatures of the air, more frightful still, which, as soon as the\nsmoke of the burning fir-wood ceased to spread itself abroad, and the\nsun was a sufficient distance down the sky, and the lone cold woman was\nout, came flying and howling about the cottage, trying to get in at\nevery door and window. Down the chimney they would have got, but that\nat the heart of the fire there always lay a certain fir-cone, which\nlooked like solid gold red-hot, and which, although it might easily get\ncovered up with ashes, so as to be quite invisible, was continually in\na glow fit to kindle all the fir-cones in the world; this it was which\nhad kept the horrible birds\u2014some say they have a claw at the tip of\nevery wing-feather\u2014from tearing the poor naughty princess to pieces,\nand gobbling her up.\n\nWhen she rose and looked about her, she was dismayed to see what a\nstate the cottage was in. The fire was out, and the windows were all\ndim with the wings and claws of the dirty birds, while the bed from\nwhich she had just risen was brown and withered, and half its purple\nbells had fallen. But she consoled herself that she could set all to\nrights in a few minutes\u2014only she must breakfast first. And, sure\nenough, there was a basin of the delicious bread and milk ready for her\nin the hole of the wall!\n\nAfter she had eaten it, she felt comfortable, and sat for a long time\nbuilding castles in the air\u2014till she was actually hungry again, without\nhaving done an atom of work. She ate again, and was idle again, and ate\nagain. Then it grew dark, and she went trembling to bed, for now she\nremembered the horrors of the last night. This time she never slept at\nall, but spent the long hours in grievous terror, for the noises were\nworse than before. She vowed she would not pass another night in such a\nhateful haunted old shed for all the ugly women, witches, and ogresses\nin the wide world. In the morning, however, she fell asleep, and slept\nlate.\n\nBreakfast was of course her first thought, after which she could not\navoid that of work. It made her very miserable, but she feared the\nconsequences of being found with it undone. A few minutes before noon,\nshe actually got up, took her pinafore for a duster, and proceeded to\ndust the table. But the wood-ashes flew about so, that it seemed\nuseless to attempt getting rid of them, and she sat down again to think\nwhat was to be done. But there is very little indeed to be done when we\nwill not do that which we have to do.\n\nHer first thought now was to run away at once while the sun was high,\nand get through the forest before night came on. She fancied she could\neasily go back the way she had come, and get home to her father\u2019s\npalace. But not the most experienced traveller in the world can ever go\nback the way the wise woman has brought him.\n\nShe got up and went to the door. It was locked! What could the old\nwoman have meant by telling her not to leave the cottage? She was\nindignant.\n\nThe wise woman had meant to make it difficult, but not impossible.\nBefore the princess, however, could find the way out, she heard a hand\nat the door, and darted in terror behind it. The wise woman opened it,\nand, leaving it open, walked straight to the hearth. Rosamond\nimmediately slid out, ran a little way, and then laid herself down in\nthe long heather.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nThe wise woman walked straight up to the hearth, looked at the fire,\nlooked at the bed, glanced round the room, and went up to the table.\nWhen she saw the one streak in the thick dust which the princess had\nleft there, a smile, half sad, half pleased, like the sun peeping\nthrough a cloud on a rainy day in spring, gleamed over her face. She\nwent at once to the door, and called in a loud voice,\n\n\u201cRosamond, come to me.\u201d\n\nAll the wolves and hyenas, fast asleep in the wood, heard her voice,\nand shivered in their dreams. No wonder then that the princess\ntrembled, and found herself compelled, she could not understand how, to\nobey the summons. She rose, like the guilty thing she felt, forsook of\nherself the hiding-place she had chosen, and walked slowly back to the\ncottage she had left full of the signs of her shame. When she entered,\nshe saw the wise woman on her knees, building up the fire with\nfir-cones. Already the flame was climbing through the heap in all\ndirections, crackling gently, and sending a sweet aromatic odor through\nthe dusty cottage.\n\n\u201cThat is my part of the work,\u201d she said, rising. \u201cNow you do yours. But\nfirst let me remind you that if you had not put it off, you would have\nfound it not only far easier, but by and by quite pleasant work, much\nmore pleasant than you can imagine now; nor would you have found the\ntime go wearily: you would neither have slept in the day and let the\nfire out, nor waked at night and heard the howling of the beast-birds.\nMore than all, you would have been glad to see me when I came back; and\nwould have leaped into my arms instead of standing there, looking so\nugly and foolish.\u201d\n\nAs she spoke, suddenly she held up before the princess a tiny mirror,\nso clear that nobody looking into it could tell what it was made of, or\neven see it at all\u2014only the thing reflected in it. Rosamond saw a child\nwith dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly eyes\u2014which, not daring to\nlook forward, seemed trying to hide behind an impertinent nose\u2014stooping\nshoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes, and smears and stains\neverywhere. That was what she had made herself. And to tell the truth,\nshe was shocked at the sight, and immediately began, in her dirty\nheart, to lay the blame on the wise woman, because she had taken her\naway from her nurses and her fine clothes; while all the time she knew\nwell enough that, close by the heather-bed, was the loveliest little\nwell, just big enough to wash in, the water of which was always\nspringing fresh from the ground, and running away through the wall.\nBeside it lay the whitest of linen towels, with a comb made of\nmother-of-pearl, and a brush of fir-needles, any one of which she had\nbeen far too lazy to use. She dashed the glass out of the wise woman\u2019s\nhand, and there it lay, broken into a thousand pieces!\n\nWithout a word, the wise woman stooped, and gathered the fragments\u2014did\nnot leave searching until she had gathered the last atom, and she laid\nthem all carefully, one by one, in the fire, now blazing high on the\nhearth. Then she stood up and looked at the princess, who had been\nwatching her sulkily.\n\n\u201cRosamond,\u201d she said, with a countenance awful in its sternness, \u201cuntil\nyou have cleansed this room\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cShe calls it a room!\u201d sneered the princess to herself.\n\n\u201cYou shall have no morsel to eat. You may drink of the well, but\nnothing else you shall have. When the work I set you is done, you will\nfind food in the same place as before. I am going from home again; and\nagain I warn you not to leave the house.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe calls it a house!\u2014It\u2019s a good thing she\u2019s going out of it anyhow!\u201d\nsaid the princess, turning her back for mere rudeness, for she was one\nwho, even if she liked a thing before, would dislike it the moment any\nperson in authority over her desired her to do it.\n\nWhen she looked again, the wise woman had vanished.\n\nThereupon the princess ran at once to the door, and tried to open it;\nbut open it would not. She searched on all sides, but could discover no\nway of getting out. The windows would not open\u2014at least she could not\nopen them; and the only outlet seemed the chimney, which she was afraid\nto try because of the fire, which looked angry, she thought, and shot\nout green flames when she went near it. So she sat down to consider.\nOne may well wonder what room for consideration there was\u2014with all her\nwork lying undone behind her. She sat thus, however, considering, as\nshe called it, until hunger began to sting her, when she jumped up and\nput her hand as usual in the hole of the wall: there was nothing there.\nShe fell straight into one of her stupid rages; but neither her hunger\nnor the hole in the wall heeded her rage. Then, in a burst of\nself-pity, she fell a-weeping, but neither the hunger nor the hole\ncared for her tears. The darkness began to come on, and her hunger grew\nand grew, and the terror of the wild noises of the last night invaded\nher. Then she began to feel cold, and saw that the fire was dying. She\ndarted to the heap of cones, and fed it. It blazed up cheerily, and she\nwas comforted a little. Then she thought with herself it would surely\nbe better to give in so far, and do a little work, than die of hunger.\nSo catching up a duster, she began upon the table. The dust flew about\nand nearly choked her. She ran to the well to drink, and was refreshed\nand encouraged. Perceiving now that it was a tedious plan to wipe the\ndust from the table on to the floor, whence it would have all to be\nswept up again, she got a wooden platter, wiped the dust into that,\ncarried it to the fire, and threw it in. But all the time she was\ngetting more and more hungry and, although she tried the hole again and\nagain, it was only to become more and more certain that work she must\nif she would eat.\n\nAt length all the furniture was dusted, and she began to sweep the\nfloor, which happily, she thought of sprinkling with water, as from the\nwindow she had seen them do to the marble court of the palace. That\nswept, she rushed again to the hole\u2014but still no food! She was on the\nverge of another rage, when the thought came that she might have\nforgotten something. To her dismay she found that table and chairs and\nevery thing was again covered with dust\u2014not so badly as before,\nhowever. Again she set to work, driven by hunger, and drawn by the hope\nof eating, and yet again, after a second careful wiping, sought the\nhole. But no! nothing was there for her! What could it mean?\n\nHer asking this question was a sign of progress: it showed that she\nexpected the wise woman to keep her word. Then she bethought her that\nshe had forgotten the household utensils, and the dishes and plates,\nsome of which wanted to be washed as well as dusted.\n\nFaint with hunger, she set to work yet again. One thing made her think\nof another, until at length she had cleaned every thing she could think\nof. Now surely she must find some food in the hole!\n\nWhen this time also there was nothing, she began once more to abuse the\nwise woman as false and treacherous;\u2014but ah! there was the bed\nunwatered! That was soon amended.\u2014Still no supper! Ah! there was the\nhearth unswept, and the fire wanted making up!\u2014Still no supper! What\nelse could there be? She was at her wits\u2019 end, and in very weariness,\nnot laziness this time, sat down and gazed into the fire. There, as she\ngazed, she spied something brilliant,\u2014shining even, in the midst of the\nfire: it was the little mirror all whole again; but little she knew\nthat the dust which she had thrown into the fire had helped to heal it.\nShe drew it out carefully, and, looking into it, saw, not indeed the\nugly creature she had seen there before, but still a very dirty little\nanimal; whereupon she hurried to the well, took off her clothes,\nplunged into it, and washed herself clean. Then she brushed and combed\nher hair, made her clothes as tidy as might be, and ran to the hole in\nthe wall: there was a huge basin of bread and milk!\n\nNever had she eaten any thing with half the relish! Alas! however, when\nshe had finished, she did not wash the basin, but left it as it was,\nrevealing how entirely all the rest had been done only from hunger.\nThen she threw herself on the heather, and was fast asleep in a moment.\nNever an evil bird came near her all that night, nor had she so much as\none troubled dream.\n\nIn the morning as she lay awake before getting up, she spied what\nseemed a door behind the tall eight-day clock that stood silent in the\ncorner.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d she thought, \u201cthat must be the way out!\u201d and got up instantly.\nThe first thing she did, however, was to go to the hole in the wall.\nNothing was there.\n\n\u201cWell, I am hardly used!\u201d she cried aloud. \u201cAll that cleaning for the\ncross old woman yesterday, and this for my trouble,\u2014nothing for\nbreakfast! Not even a crust of bread! Does Mistress Ogress fancy a\nprincess will bear that?\u201d\n\nThe poor foolish creature seemed to think that the work of one day\nought to serve for the next day too! But that is nowhere the way in the\nwhole universe. How could there be a universe in that case? And even\nshe never dreamed of applying the same rule to her breakfast.\n\n\u201cHow good I was all yesterday!\u201d she said, \u201cand how hungry and ill used\nI am to-day!\u201d\n\nBut she would _not_ be a slave, and do over again to-day what she had\ndone only last night! _She_ didn\u2019t care about her breakfast! She might\nhave it no doubt if she dusted all the wretched place again, but she\nwas not going to do that\u2014at least, without seeing first what lay behind\nthe clock!\n\nOff she darted, and putting her hand behind the clock found the latch\nof a door. It lifted, and the door opened a little way. By squeezing\nhard, she managed to get behind the clock, and so through the door. But\nhow she stared, when instead of the open heath, she found herself on\nthe marble floor of a large and stately room, lighted only from above.\nIts walls were strengthened by pilasters, and in every space between\nwas a large picture, from cornice to floor. She did not know what to\nmake of it. Surely she had run all round the cottage, and certainly had\nseen nothing of this size near it! She forgot that she had also run\nround what she took for a hay-mow, a peat-stack, and several other\nthings which looked of no consequence in the moonlight.\n\n\u201cSo, then,\u201d she cried, \u201cthe old woman _is_ a cheat! I believe she\u2019s an\nogress, after all, and lives in a palace\u2014though she pretends it\u2019s only\na cottage, to keep people from suspecting that she eats good little\nchildren like me!\u201d\n\nHad the princess been tolerably tractable, she would, by this time,\nhave known a good deal about the wise woman\u2019s beautiful house, whereas\nshe had never till now got farther than the porch. Neither was she at\nall in its innermost places now.\n\nBut, king\u2019s daughter as she was, she was not a little daunted when,\nstepping forward from the recess of the door, she saw what a great\nlordly hall it was. She dared hardly look to the other end, it seemed\nso far off: so she began to gaze at the things near her, and the\npictures first of all, for she had a great liking for pictures. One in\nparticular attracted her attention. She came back to it several times,\nand at length stood absorbed in it.\n\nA blue summer sky, with white fleecy clouds floating beneath it, hung\nover a hill green to the very top, and alive with streams darting down\nits sides toward the valley below. On the face of the hill strayed a\nflock of sheep feeding, attended by a shepherd and two dogs. A little\nway apart, a girl stood with bare feet in a brook, building across it a\nbridge of rough stones. The wind was blowing her hair back from her\nrosy face. A lamb was feeding close beside her; and a sheepdog was\ntrying to reach her hand to lick it.\n\n\u201cOh, how I wish I were that little girl!\u201d said the princess aloud. \u201cI\nwonder how it is that some people are made to be so much happier than\nothers! If I were that little girl, no one would ever call me naughty.\u201d\n\nShe gazed and gazed at the picture. At length she said to herself,\n\n\u201cI do not believe it is a picture. It is the real country, with a real\nhill, and a real little girl upon it. I shall soon see whether this\nisn\u2019t another of the old witch\u2019s cheats!\u201d\n\nShe went close up to the picture, lifted her foot, and stepped over the\nframe.\n\n\u201cI am free, I am free!\u201d she exclaimed; and she felt the wind upon her\ncheek.\n\nThe sound of a closing door struck on her ear. She turned\u2014and there was\na blank wall, without door or window, behind her. The hill with the\nsheep was before her, and she set out at once to reach it.\n\nNow, if I am asked how this could be, I can only answer, that it was a\nresult of the interaction of things outside and things inside, of the\nwise woman\u2019s skill, and the silly child\u2019s folly. If this does not\nsatisfy my questioner, I can only add, that the wise woman was able to\ndo far more wonderful things than this.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\nMeantime the wise woman was busy as she always was; and her business\nnow was with the child of the shepherd and shepherdess, away in the\nnorth. Her name was Agnes.\n\nHer father and mother were poor, and could not give her many things.\nRosamond would have utterly despised the rude, simple playthings she\nhad. Yet in one respect they were of more value far than hers: the king\nbought Rosamond\u2019s with his money; Agnes\u2019s father made hers with his\nhands.\n\nAnd while Agnes had but few things\u2014not seeing many things about her,\nand not even knowing that there were many things anywhere, she did not\nwish for many things, and was therefore neither covetous nor\navaricious.\n\nShe played with the toys her father made her, and thought them the most\nwonderful things in the world\u2014windmills, and little crooks, and\nwater-wheels, and sometimes lambs made all of wool, and dolls made out\nof the leg-bones of sheep, which her mother dressed for her; and of\nsuch playthings she was never tired. Sometimes, however, she preferred\nplaying with stones, which were plentiful, and flowers, which were few,\nor the brooks that ran down the hill, of which, although they were\nmany, she could only play with one at a time, and that, indeed,\ntroubled her a little\u2014or live lambs that were not all wool, or the\nsheep-dogs, which were very friendly with her, and the best of\nplayfellows, as she thought, for she had no human ones to compare them\nwith. Neither was she greedy after nice things, but content, as well\nshe might be, with the homely food provided for her. Nor was she by\nnature particularly self-willed or disobedient; she generally did what\nher father and mother wished, and believed what they told her. But by\ndegrees they had spoiled her; and this was the way: they were so proud\nof her that they always repeated every thing she said, and told every\nthing she did, even when she was present; and so full of admiration of\ntheir child were they, that they wondered and laughed at and praised\nthings in her which in another child would never have struck them as\nthe least remarkable, and some things even which would in another have\ndisgusted them altogether. Impertinent and rude things done by _their_\nchild they thought _so_ clever! laughing at them as something quite\nmarvellous; her commonplace speeches were said over again as if they\nhad been the finest poetry; and the pretty ways which every moderately\ngood child has were extolled as if the result of her excellent taste,\nand the choice of her judgment and will. They would even say sometimes\nthat she ought not to hear her own praises for fear it should make her\nvain, and then whisper them behind their hands, but so loud that she\ncould not fail to hear every word. The consequence was that she soon\ncame to believe\u2014so soon, that she could not recall the time when she\ndid not believe, as the most absolute fact in the universe, that she\nwas _Somebody;_ that is, she became most immoderately conceited.\n\nNow as the least atom of conceit is a thing to be ashamed of, you may\nfancy what she was like with such a quantity of it inside her!\n\nAt first it did not show itself outside in any very active form; but\nthe wise woman had been to the cottage, and had seen her sitting alone,\nwith such a smile of self-satisfaction upon her face as would have been\nquite startling to her, if she had ever been startled at any thing; for\nthrough that smile she could see lying at the root of it the worm that\nmade it. For some smiles are like the ruddiness of certain apples,\nwhich is owing to a centipede, or other creeping thing, coiled up at\nthe heart of them. Only her worm had a face and shape the very image of\nher own; and she looked so simpering, and mawkish, and self-conscious,\nand silly, that she made the wise woman feel rather sick.\n\nNot that the child was a fool. Had she been, the wise woman would have\nonly pitied and loved her, instead of feeling sick when she looked at\nher. She had very fair abilities, and were she once but made humble,\nwould be capable not only of doing a good deal in time, but of\nbeginning at once to grow to no end. But, if she were not made humble,\nher growing would be to a mass of distorted shapes all huddled\ntogether; so that, although the body she now showed might grow up\nstraight and well-shaped and comely to behold, the new body that was\ngrowing inside of it, and would come out of it when she died, would be\nugly, and crooked this way and that, like an aged hawthorn that has\nlived hundreds of years exposed upon all sides to salt sea-winds.\n\nAs time went on, this disease of self-conceit went on too, gradually\ndevouring the good that was in her. For there is no fault that does not\nbring its brothers and sisters and cousins to live with it. By degrees,\nfrom thinking herself so clever, she came to fancy that whatever seemed\nto her, must of course be the correct judgment, and whatever she\nwished, the right thing; and grew so obstinate, that at length her\nparents feared to thwart her in any thing, knowing well that she would\nnever give in. But there are victories far worse than defeats; and to\novercome an angel too gentle to put out all his strength, and ride away\nin triumph on the back of a devil, is one of the poorest.\n\nSo long as she was left to take her own way and do as she would, she\ngave her parents little trouble. She would play about by herself in the\nlittle garden with its few hardy flowers, or amongst the heather where\nthe bees were busy; or she would wander away amongst the hills, and be\nnobody knew where, sometimes from morning to night; nor did her parents\nventure to find fault with her.\n\nShe never went into rages like the princess, and would have thought\nRosamond\u2014oh, so ugly and vile! if she had seen her in one of her\npassions. But she was no better, for all that, and was quite as ugly in\nthe eyes of the wise woman, who could not only see but read her face.\nWhat is there to choose between a face distorted to hideousness by\nanger, and one distorted to silliness by self-complacency? True, there\nis more hope of helping the angry child out of her form of selfishness\nthan the conceited child out of hers; but on the other hand, the\nconceited child was not so terrible or dangerous as the wrathful one.\nThe conceited one, however, was sometimes very angry, and then her\nanger was more spiteful than the other\u2019s; and, again, the wrathful one\nwas often very conceited too. So that, on the whole, of two very\nunpleasant creatures, I would say that the king\u2019s daughter would have\nbeen the worse, had not the shepherd\u2019s been quite as bad. But, as I\nhave said, the wise woman had her eye upon her: she saw that something\nspecial must be done, else she would be one of those who kneel to their\nown shadows till feet grow on their knees; then go down on their hands\ntill their hands grow into feet; then lay their faces on the ground\ntill they grow into snouts; when at last they are a hideous sort of\nlizards, each of which believes himself the best, wisest, and loveliest\nbeing in the world, yea, the very centre of the universe. And so they\nrun about forever looking for their own shadows, that they may worship\nthem, and miserable because they cannot find them, being themselves too\nnear the ground to have any shadows; and what becomes of them at last\nthere is but one who knows.\n\nThe wise woman, therefore, one day walked up to the door of the\nshepherd\u2019s cottage, dressed like a poor woman, and asked for a drink of\nwater. The shepherd\u2019s wife looked at her, liked her, and brought her a\ncup of milk. The wise woman took it, for she made it a rule to accept\nevery kindness that was offered her.\n\nAgnes was not by nature a greedy girl, as I have said; but self-conceit\nwill go far to generate every other vice under the sun. Vanity, which\nis a form of self-conceit, has repeatedly shown itself as the deepest\nfeeling in the heart of a horrible murderess.\n\nThat morning, at breakfast, her mother had stinted her in milk\u2014just a\nlittle\u2014that she might have enough to make some milk-porridge for their\ndinner. Agnes did not mind it at the time, but when she saw the milk\nnow given to a beggar, as she called the wise woman\u2014though, surely, one\nmight ask a draught of water, and accept a draught of milk, without\nbeing a beggar in any such sense as Agnes\u2019s contemptuous use of the\nword implied\u2014a cloud came upon her forehead, and a double vertical\nwrinkle settled over her nose. The wise woman saw it, for all her\nbusiness was with Agnes though she little knew it, and, rising, went\nand offered the cup to the child, where she sat with her knitting in a\ncorner. Agnes looked at it, did not want it, was inclined to refuse it\nfrom a beggar, but thinking it would show her consequence to assert her\nrights, took it and drank it up. For whoever is possessed by a devil,\njudges with the mind of that devil; and hence Agnes was guilty of such\na meanness as many who are themselves capable of something just as bad\nwill consider incredible.\n\nThe wise woman waited till she had finished it\u2014then, looking into the\nempty cup, said:\n\n\u201cYou might have given me back as much as you had no claim upon!\u201d\n\nAgnes turned away and made no answer\u2014far less from shame than\nindignation.\n\nThe wise woman looked at the mother.\n\n\u201cYou should not have offered it to her if you did not mean her to have\nit,\u201d said the mother, siding with the devil in her child against the\nwise woman and her child too. Some foolish people think they take\nanother\u2019s part when they take the part he takes.\n\nThe wise woman said nothing, but fixed her eyes upon her, and soon the\nmother hid her face in her apron weeping. Then she turned again to\nAgnes, who had never looked round but sat with her back to both, and\nsuddenly lapped her in the folds of her cloak. When the mother again\nlifted her eyes, she had vanished.\n\nNever supposing she had carried away her child, but uncomfortable\nbecause of what she had said to the poor woman, the mother went to the\ndoor, and called after her as she toiled slowly up the hill. But she\nnever turned her head; and the mother went back into her cottage.\n\nThe wise woman walked close past the shepherd and his dogs, and through\nthe midst of his flock of sheep. The shepherd wondered where she could\nbe going\u2014right up the hill. There was something strange about her too,\nhe thought; and he followed her with his eyes as she went up and up.\n\nIt was near sunset, and as the sun went down, a gray cloud settled on\nthe top of the mountain, which his last rays turned into a rosy gold.\nStraight into this cloud the shepherd saw the woman hold her pace, and\nin it she vanished. He little imagined that his child was under her\ncloak.\n\nHe went home as usual in the evening, but Agnes had not come in. They\nwere accustomed to such an absence now and then, and were not at first\nfrightened; but when it grew dark and she did not appear, the husband\nset out with his dogs in one direction, and the wife in another, to\nseek their child. Morning came and they had not found her. Then the\nwhole country-side arose to search for the missing Agnes; but day after\nday and night after night passed, and nothing was discovered of or\nconcerning her, until at length all gave up the search in despair\nexcept the mother, although she was nearly convinced now that the poor\nwoman had carried her off.\n\nOne day she had wandered some distance from her cottage, thinking she\nmight come upon the remains of her daughter at the foot of some cliff,\nwhen she came suddenly, instead, upon a disconsolate-looking creature\nsitting on a stone by the side of a stream.\n\nHer hair hung in tangles from her head; her clothes were tattered, and\nthrough the rents her skin showed in many places; her cheeks were\nwhite, and worn thin with hunger; the hollows were dark under her eyes,\nand they stood out scared and wild. When she caught sight of the\nshepherdess, she jumped to her feet, and would have run away, but fell\ndown in a faint.\n\nAt first sight the mother had taken her for her own child, but now she\nsaw, with a pang of disappointment, that she had mistaken. Full of\ncompassion, nevertheless, she said to herself:\n\n\u201cIf she is not my Agnes, she is as much in need of help as if she were.\nIf I cannot be good to my own, I will be as good as I can to some other\nwoman\u2019s; and though I should scorn to be consoled for the loss of one\nby the presence of another, I yet may find some gladness in rescuing\none child from the death which has taken the other.\u201d\n\nPerhaps her words were not just like these, but her thoughts were. She\ntook up the child, and carried her home. And this is how Rosamond came\nto occupy the place of the little girl whom she had envied in the\npicture.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\nNotwithstanding the differences between the two girls, which were,\nindeed, so many that most people would have said they were not in the\nleast alike, they were the same in this, that each cared more for her\nown fancies and desires than for any thing else in the world. But I\nwill tell you another difference: the princess was like several\nchildren in one\u2014such was the variety of her moods; and in one mood she\nhad no recollection or care about any thing whatever belonging to a\nprevious mood\u2014not even if it had left her but a moment before, and had\nbeen so violent as to make her ready to put her hand in the fire to get\nwhat she wanted. Plainly she was the mere puppet of her moods, and more\nthan that, any cunning nurse who knew her well enough could call or\nsend away those moods almost as she pleased, like a showman pulling\nstrings behind a show. Agnes, on the contrary, seldom changed her mood,\nbut kept that of calm assured self-satisfaction. Father nor mother had\never by wise punishment helped her to gain a victory over herself, and\ndo what she did not like or choose; and their folly in reasoning with\none unreasonable had fixed her in her conceit. She would actually nod\nher head to herself in complacent pride that she had stood out against\nthem. This, however, was not so difficult as to justify even the pride\nof having conquered, seeing she loved them so little, and paid so\nlittle attention to the arguments and persuasions they used. Neither,\nwhen she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman\u2019s\ncloak, did she behave in the least like the princess, for she was not\nafraid. \u201cShe\u2019ll soon set me down,\u201d she said, too self-important to\nsuppose that any one would dare do her an injury.\n\nWhether it be a good thing or a bad not to be afraid depends on what\nthe fearlessness is founded upon. Some have no fear, because they have\nno knowledge of the danger: there is nothing fine in that. Some are too\nstupid to be afraid: there is nothing fine in that. Some who are not\neasily frightened would yet turn their backs and run, the moment they\nwere frightened: such never had more courage than fear. But the man who\nwill do his work in spite of his fear is a man of true courage. The\nfearlessness of Agnes was only ignorance: she did not know what it was\nto be hurt; she had never read a single story of giant, or ogress or\nwolf; and her mother had never carried out one of her threats of\npunishment. If the wise woman had but pinched her, she would have shown\nherself an abject little coward, trembling with fear at every change of\nmotion so long as she carried her.\n\nNothing such, however, was in the wise woman\u2019s plan for the curing of\nher. On and on she carried her without a word. She knew that if she set\nher down she would never run after her like the princess, at least not\nbefore the evil thing was already upon her. On and on she went, never\nhalting, never letting the light look in, or Agnes look out. She walked\nvery fast, and got home to her cottage very soon after the princess had\ngone from it.\n\nBut she did not set Agnes down either in the cottage or in the great\nhall. She had other places, none of them alike. The place she had\nchosen for Agnes was a strange one\u2014such a one as is to be found nowhere\nelse in the wide world.\n\nIt was a great hollow sphere, made of a substance similar to that of\nthe mirror which Rosamond had broken, but differently compounded. That\nsubstance no one could see by itself. It had neither door, nor window,\nnor any opening to break its perfect roundness.\n\nThe wise woman carried Agnes into a dark room, there undressed her,\ntook from her hand her knitting-needles, and put her, naked as she was\nborn, into the hollow sphere.\n\nWhat sort of a place it was she could not tell. She could see nothing\nbut a faint cold bluish light all about her. She could not feel that\nany thing supported her, and yet she did not sink. She stood for a\nwhile, perfectly calm, then sat down. Nothing bad could happen to\n_her_\u2014she was so important! And, indeed, it was but this: she had cared\nonly for Somebody, and now she was going to have only Somebody. Her own\nchoice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her than she\nwould have knowingly carried it for herself.\n\nAfter sitting a while, she wished she had something to do, but nothing\ncame. A little longer, and it grew wearisome. She would see whether she\ncould not walk out of the strange luminous dusk that surrounded her.\n\nWalk she found she could, well enough, but walk out she could not. On\nand on she went, keeping as much in a straight line as she might, but\nafter walking until she was thoroughly tired, she found herself no\nnearer out of her prison than before. She had not, indeed, advanced a\nsingle step; for, in whatever direction she tried to go, the sphere\nturned round and round, answering her feet accordingly. Like a squirrel\nin his cage she but kept placing another spot of the cunningly\nsuspended sphere under her feet, and she would have been still only at\nits lowest point after walking for ages.\n\nAt length she cried aloud; but there was no answer. It grew dreary and\ndrearier\u2014in her, that is: outside there was no change. Nothing was\noverhead, nothing under foot, nothing on either hand, but the same\npale, faint, bluish glimmer. She wept at last, then grew very angry,\nand then sullen; but nobody heeded whether she cried or laughed. It was\nall the same to the cold unmoving twilight that rounded her. On and on\nwent the dreary hours\u2014or did they go at all?\u2014\u201cno change, no pause, no\nhope;\u201d\u2014on and on till she _felt_ she was forgotten, and then she grew\nstrangely still and fell asleep.\n\nThe moment she was asleep, the wise woman came, lifted her out, and\nlaid her in her bosom; fed her with a wonderful milk, which she\nreceived without knowing it; nursed her all the night long, and, just\nere she woke, laid her back in the blue sphere again.\n\nWhen first she came to herself, she thought the horrors of the\npreceding day had been all a dream of the night. But they soon asserted\nthemselves as facts, for here they were!\u2014nothing to see but a cold blue\nlight, and nothing to do but see it. Oh, how slowly the hours went by!\nShe lost all notion of time. If she had been told that she had been\nthere twenty years, she would have believed it\u2014or twenty minutes\u2014it\nwould have been all the same: except for weariness, time was for her no\nmore.\n\nAnother night came, and another still, during both of which the wise\nwoman nursed and fed her. But she knew nothing of that, and the same\none dreary day seemed ever brooding over her.\n\nAll at once, on the third day, she was aware that a naked child was\nseated beside her. But there was something about the child that made\nher shudder. She never looked at Agnes, but sat with her chin sunk on\nher chest, and her eyes staring at her own toes. She was the color of\npale earth, with a pinched nose, and a mere slit in her face for a\nmouth.\n\n\u201cHow ugly she is!\u201d thought Agnes. \u201cWhat business has she beside me!\u201d\n\nBut it was so lonely that she would have been glad to play with a\nserpent, and put out her hand to touch her. She touched nothing. The\nchild, also, put out her hand\u2014but in the direction away from Agnes. And\nthat was well, for if she had touched Agnes it would have killed her.\nThen Agnes said, \u201cWho are you?\u201d And the little girl said, \u201cWho are\nyou?\u201d \u201cI am Agnes,\u201d said Agnes; and the little girl said, \u201cI am Agnes.\u201d\nThen Agnes thought she was mocking her, and said, \u201cYou are ugly;\u201d and\nthe little girl said, \u201cYou are ugly.\u201d\n\nThen Agnes lost her temper, and put out her hands to seize the little\ngirl; but lo! the little girl was gone, and she found herself tugging\nat her own hair. She let go; and there was the little girl again! Agnes\nwas furious now, and flew at her to bite her. But she found her teeth\nin her own arm, and the little girl was gone\u2014only to return again; and\neach time she came back she was tenfold uglier than before. And now\nAgnes hated her with her whole heart.\n\nThe moment she hated her, it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust\nthat the child was not another, but her Self, her Somebody, and that\nshe was now shut up with her for ever and ever\u2014no more for one moment\never to be alone. In her agony of despair, sleep descended, and she\nslept.\n\nWhen she woke, there was the little girl, heedless, ugly, miserable,\nstaring at her own toes. All at once, the creature began to smile, but\nwith such an odious, self-satisfied expression, that Agnes felt ashamed\nof seeing her. Then she began to pat her own cheeks, to stroke her own\nbody, and examine her finger-ends, nodding her head with satisfaction.\nAgnes felt that there could not be such another hateful, ape-like\ncreature, and at the same time was perfectly aware she was only doing\noutside of her what she herself had been doing, as long as she could\nremember, inside of her.\n\nShe turned sick at herself, and would gladly have been put out of\nexistence, but for three days the odious companionship went on. By the\nthird day, Agnes was not merely sick but ashamed of the life she had\nhitherto led, was despicable in her own eyes, and astonished that she\nhad never seen the truth concerning herself before.\n\nThe next morning she woke in the arms of the wise woman; the horror had\nvanished from her sight, and two heavenly eyes were gazing upon her.\nShe wept and clung to her, and the more she clung, the more tenderly\ndid the great strong arms close around her.\n\nWhen she had lain thus for a while, the wise woman carried her into her\ncottage, and washed her in the little well; then dressed her in clean\ngarments, and gave her bread and milk. When she had eaten it, she\ncalled her to her, and said very solemnly,\u2014\n\n\u201cAgnes, you must not imagine you are cured. That you are ashamed of\nyourself now is no sign that the cause for such shame has ceased. In\nnew circumstances, especially after you have done well for a while, you\nwill be in danger of thinking just as much of yourself as before. So\nbeware of yourself. I am going from home, and leave you in charge of\nthe house. Do just as I tell you till my return.\u201d\n\nShe then gave her the same directions she had formerly given\nRosamond\u2014with this difference, that she told her to go into the\npicture-hall when she pleased, showing her the entrance, against which\nthe clock no longer stood\u2014and went away, closing the door behind her.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n\nAs soon as she was left alone, Agnes set to work tidying and dusting\nthe cottage, made up the fire, watered the bed, and cleaned the inside\nof the windows: the wise woman herself always kept the outside of them\nclean. When she had done, she found her dinner\u2014of the same sort she was\nused to at home, but better\u2014in the hole of the wall. When she had eaten\nit, she went to look at the pictures.\n\nBy this time her old disposition had begun to rouse again. She had been\ndoing her duty, and had in consequence begun again to think herself\nSomebody. However strange it may well seem, to do one\u2019s duty will make\nany one conceited who only does it sometimes. Those who do it always\nwould as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of\ndoing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking\npockets? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of\ndoing one\u2019s duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how\nlittle one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any\nbut a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our\nduty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.\n\nSo Agnes began to stroke herself once more, forgetting her late\nself-stroking companion, and never reflecting that she was now doing\nwhat she had then abhorred. And in this mood she went into the\npicture-gallery.\n\nThe first picture she saw represented a square in a great city, one\nside of which was occupied by a splendid marble palace, with great\nflights of broad steps leading up to the door. Between it and the\nsquare was a marble-paved court, with gates of brass, at which stood\nsentries in gorgeous uniforms, and to which was affixed the following\nproclamation in letters of gold, large enough for Agnes to read:\u2014\n\n\u201cBy the will of the King, from this time until further notice, every\nstray child found in the realm shall be brought without a moment\u2019s\ndelay to the palace. Whoever shall be found having done otherwise shall\nstraightway lose his head by the hand of the public executioner.\u201d\n\n\nAgnes\u2019s heart beat loud, and her face flushed.\n\n\u201cCan there be such a city in the world?\u201d she said to herself. \u201cIf I\nonly knew where it was, I should set out for it at once. _There_ would\nbe the place for a clever girl like me!\u201d\n\nHer eyes fell on the picture which had so enticed Rosamond. It was the\nvery country where her father fed his flocks. Just round the shoulder\nof the hill was the cottage where her parents lived, where she was born\nand whence she had been carried by the beggar-woman.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d she said, \u201cthey didn\u2019t know me there. They little thought what I\ncould be, if I had the chance. If I were but in this good, kind,\nloving, generous king\u2019s palace, I should soon be such a great lady as\nthey never saw! Then they would understand what a good little girl I\nhad always been! And I shouldn\u2019t forget my poor parents like some I\nhave read of. _I_ would be generous. _I_ should never be selfish and\nproud like girls in story-books!\u201d\n\nAs she said this, she turned her back with disdain upon the picture of\nher home, and setting herself before the picture of the palace, stared\nat it with wide ambitious eyes, and a heart whose every beat was a\nthrob of arrogant self-esteem.\n\nThe shepherd-child was now worse than ever the poor princess had been.\nFor the wise woman had given her a terrible lesson one of which the\nprincess was not capable, and she had known what it meant; yet here she\nwas as bad as ever, therefore worse than before. The ugly creature\nwhose presence had made her so miserable had indeed crept out of sight\nand mind too\u2014but where was she? Nestling in her very heart, where most\nof all she had her company, and least of all could see her. The wise\nwoman had called her out, that Agnes might see what sort of creature\nshe was herself; but now she was snug in her soul\u2019s bed again, and she\ndid not even suspect she was there.\n\nAfter gazing a while at the palace picture, during which her ambitious\npride rose and rose, she turned yet again in condescending mood, and\nhonored the home picture with one stare more.\n\n\u201cWhat a poor, miserable spot it is compared with this lordly palace!\u201d\nshe said.\n\nBut presently she spied something in it she had not seen before, and\ndrew nearer. It was the form of a little girl, building a bridge of\nstones over one of the hill-brooks.\n\n\u201cAh, there I am myself!\u201d she said. \u201cThat is just how I used to do.\u2014No,\u201d\nshe resumed, \u201cit is not me. That snub-nosed little fright could never\nbe meant for me! It was the frock that made me think so. But it _is_ a\npicture of the place. I declare, I can see the smoke of the cottage\nrising from behind the hill! What a dull, dirty, insignificant spot it\nis! And what a life to lead there!\u201d\n\nShe turned once more to the city picture. And now a strange thing took\nplace. In proportion as the other, to the eyes of her mind, receded\ninto the background, this, to her present bodily eyes, appeared to come\nforward and assume reality. At last, after it had been in this way\ngrowing upon her for some time, she gave a cry of conviction, and said\naloud,\u2014\n\n\u201cI do believe it is real! That frame is only a trick of the woman to\nmake me fancy it a picture lest I should go and make my fortune. She is\na witch, the ugly old creature! It would serve her right to tell the\nking and have her punished for not taking me to the palace\u2014one of his\npoor lost children he is so fond of! I should like to see her ugly old\nhead cut off. Anyhow I will try my luck without asking her leave. How\nshe has ill used me!\u201d\n\nBut at that moment, she heard the voice of the wise woman calling,\n\u201cAgnes!\u201d and, smoothing her face, she tried to look as good as she\ncould, and walked back into the cottage. There stood the wise woman,\nlooking all round the place, and examining her work. She fixed her eyes\nupon Agnes in a way that confused her, and made her cast hers down, for\nshe felt as if she were reading her thoughts. The wise woman, however,\nasked no questions, but began to talk about her work, approving of some\nof it, which filled her with arrogance, and showing how some of it\nmight have been done better, which filled her with resentment. But the\nwise woman seemed to take no care of what she might be thinking, and\nwent straight on with her lesson. By the time it was over, the power of\nreading thoughts would not have been necessary to a knowledge of what\nwas in the mind of Agnes, for it had all come to the surface\u2014that is up\ninto her face, which is the surface of the mind. Ere it had time to\nsink down again, the wise woman caught up the little mirror, and held\nit before her: Agnes saw her Somebody\u2014the very embodiment of miserable\nconceit and ugly ill-temper. She gave such a scream of horror that the\nwise woman pitied her, and laying aside the mirror, took her upon her\nknees, and talked to her most kindly and solemnly; in particular about\nthe necessity of destroying the ugly things that come out of the\nheart\u2014so ugly that they make the very face over them ugly also.\n\nAnd what was Agnes doing all the time the wise woman was talking to\nher? Would you believe it?\u2014instead of thinking how to kill the ugly\nthings in her heart, she was with all her might resolving to be more\ncareful of her face, that is, to keep down the things in her heart so\nthat they should not show in her face, she was resolving to be a\nhypocrite as well as a self-worshipper. Her heart was wormy, and the\nworms were eating very fast at it now.\n\nThen the wise woman laid her gently down upon the heather-bed, and she\nfell fast asleep, and had an awful dream about her Somebody.\n\nWhen she woke in the morning, instead of getting up to do the work of\nthe house, she lay thinking\u2014to evil purpose. In place of taking her\ndream as a warning, and thinking over what the wise woman had said the\nnight before, she communed with herself in this fashion:\u2014\n\n\u201cIf I stay here longer, I shall be miserable, It is nothing better than\nslavery. The old witch shows me horrible things in the day to set me\ndreaming horrible things in the night. If I don\u2019t run away, that\nfrightful blue prison and the disgusting girl will come back, and I\nshall go out of my mind. How I do wish I could find the way to the good\nking\u2019s palace! I shall go and look at the picture again\u2014if it be a\npicture\u2014as soon as I\u2019ve got my clothes on. The work can wait. It\u2019s not\nmy work. It\u2019s the old witch\u2019s; and she ought to do it herself.\u201d\n\nShe jumped out of bed, and hurried on her clothes. There was no wise\nwoman to be seen; and she hastened into the hall. There was the\npicture, with the marble palace, and the proclamation shining in\nletters of gold upon its gates of brass. She stood before it, and gazed\nand gazed; and all the time it kept growing upon her in some strange\nway, until at last she was fully persuaded that it was no picture, but\na real city, square, and marble palace, seen through a framed opening\nin the wall. She ran up to the frame, stepped over it, felt the wind\nblow upon her cheek, heard the sound of a closing door behind her, and\nwas free. _Free_ was she, with that creature inside her?\n\nThe same moment a terrible storm of thunder and lightning, wind and\nrain, came on. The uproar was appalling. Agnes threw herself upon the\nground, hid her face in her hands, and there lay until it was over. As\nsoon as she felt the sun shining on her, she rose. There was the city\nfar away on the horizon. Without once turning to take a farewell look\nof the place she was leaving, she set off, as fast as her feet would\ncarry her, in the direction of the city. So eager was she, that again\nand again she fell, but only to get up, and run on faster than before.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\n\nThe shepherdess carried Rosamond home, gave her a warm bath in the tub\nin which she washed her linen, made her some bread-and-milk, and after\nshe had eaten it, put her to bed in Agnes\u2019s crib, where she slept all\nthe rest of that day and all the following night.\n\nWhen at last she opened her eyes, it was to see around her a far poorer\ncottage than the one she had left\u2014very bare and uncomfortable indeed,\nshe might well have thought; but she had come through such troubles of\nlate, in the way of hunger and weariness and cold and fear, that she\nwas not altogether in her ordinary mood of fault-finding, and so was\nable to lie enjoying the thought that at length she was safe, and going\nto be fed and kept warm. The idea of doing any thing in return for\nshelter and food and clothes, did not, however, even cross her mind.\n\nBut the shepherdess was one of that plentiful number who can be wiser\nconcerning other women\u2019s children than concerning their own. Such will\noften give you very tolerable hints as to how you ought to manage your\nchildren, and will find fault neatly enough with the system you are\ntrying to carry out; but all their wisdom goes off in talking, and\nthere is none left for doing what they have themselves said. There is\none road talk never finds, and that is the way into the talker\u2019s own\nhands and feet. And such never seem to know themselves\u2014not even when\nthey are reading about themselves in print. Still, not being specially\nblinded in any direction but their own, they can sometimes even act\nwith a little sense towards children who are not theirs. They are\naffected with a sort of blindness like that which renders some people\nincapable of seeing, except sideways.\n\nShe came up to the bed, looked at the princess, and saw that she was\nbetter. But she did not like her much. There was no mark of a princess\nabout her, and never had been since she began to run alone. True,\nhunger had brought down her fat cheeks, but it had not turned down her\nimpudent nose, or driven the sullenness and greed from her mouth.\nNothing but the wise woman could do that\u2014and not even she, without the\naid of the princess herself. So the shepherdess thought what a poor\nsubstitute she had got for her own lovely Agnes\u2014who was in fact equally\nrepulsive, only in a way to which she had got used; for the selfishness\nin her love had blinded her to the thin pinched nose and the mean\nself-satisfied mouth. It was well for the princess, though, sad as it\nis to say, that the shepherdess did not take to her, for then she would\nmost likely have only done her harm instead of good.\n\n\u201cNow, my girl,\u201d she said, \u201cyou must get up, and do something. We can\u2019t\nkeep idle folk here.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019m not a folk,\u201d said Rosamond; \u201cI\u2019m a princess.\u201d\n\n\u201cA pretty princess\u2014with a nose like that! And all in rags too! If you\ntell such stories, I shall soon let you know what I think of you.\u201d\n\nRosamond then understood that the mere calling herself a princess,\nwithout having any thing to show for it, was of no use. She obeyed and\nrose, for she was hungry; but she had to sweep the floor ere she had\nany thing to eat.\n\nThe shepherd came in to breakfast, and was kinder than his wife. He\ntook her up in his arms and would have kissed her; but she took it as\nan insult from a man whose hands smelt of tar, and kicked and screamed\nwith rage. The poor man, finding he had made a mistake, set her down at\nonce. But to look at the two, one might well have judged it\ncondescension rather than rudeness in such a man to kiss such a child.\nHe was tall, and almost stately, with a thoughtful forehead, bright\neyes, eagle nose, and gentle mouth; while the princess was such as I\nhave described her.\n\nNot content with being set down and let alone, she continued to storm\nand scold at the shepherd, crying she was a princess, and would like to\nknow what right he had to touch her! But he only looked down upon her\nfrom the height of his tall person with a benignant smile, regarding\nher as a spoiled little ape whose mother had flattered her by calling\nher a princess.\n\n\u201cTurn her out of doors, the ungrateful hussy!\u201d cried his wife. \u201cWith\nyour bread and your milk inside her ugly body, this is what she gives\nyou for it! Troth, I\u2019m paid for carrying home such an ill-bred tramp in\nmy arms! My own poor angel Agnes! As if that ill-tempered toad were one\nhair like her!\u201d\n\nThese words drove the princess beside herself; for those who are most\ngiven to abuse can least endure it. With fists and feet and teeth, as\nwas her wont, she rushed at the shepherdess, whose hand was already\nraised to deal her a sound box on the ear, when a better appointed\nminister of vengeance suddenly showed himself. Bounding in at the\ncottage-door came one of the sheep-dogs, who was called Prince, and\nwhom I shall not refer to with a _which_, because he was a very\nsuperior animal indeed, even for a sheep-dog, which is the most\nintelligent of dogs: he flew at the princess, knocked her down, and\ncommenced shaking her so violently as to tear her miserable clothes to\npieces. Used, however, to mouthing little lambs, he took care not to\nhurt her much, though for her good he left her a blue nip or two by way\nof letting her imagine what biting might be. His master, knowing he\nwould not injure her, thought it better not to call him off, and in\nhalf a minute he left her of his own accord, and, casting a glance of\nindignant rebuke behind him as he went, walked slowly to the hearth,\nwhere he laid himself down with his tail toward her. She rose,\nterrified almost to death, and would have crept again into Agnes\u2019s crib\nfor refuge; but the shepherdess cried\u2014\n\n\u201cCome, come, princess! I\u2019ll have no skulking to bed in the good\ndaylight. Go and clean your master\u2019s Sunday boots there.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will not!\u201d screamed the princess, and ran from the house.\n\n\u201cPrince!\u201d cried the shepherdess, and up jumped the dog, and looked in\nher face, wagging his bushy tail.\n\n\u201cFetch her back,\u201d she said, pointing to the door.\n\nWith two or three bounds Prince caught the princess, again threw her\ndown, and taking her by her clothes dragged her back into the cottage,\nand dropped her at his mistress\u2019 feet, where she lay like a bundle of\nrags.\n\n\u201cGet up,\u201d said the shepherdess.\n\nRosamond got up as pale as death.\n\n\u201cGo and clean the boots.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo and try. There are the brushes, and yonder is the blacking-pot.\u201d\n\nInstructing her how to black boots, it came into the thought of the\nshepherdess what a fine thing it would be if she could teach this\nmiserable little wretch, so forsaken and ill-bred, to be a good,\nwell-behaved, respectable child. She was hardly the woman to do it, but\nevery thing well meant is a help, and she had the wisdom to beg her\nhusband to place Prince under her orders for a while, and not take him\nto the hill as usual, that he might help her in getting the princess\ninto order.\n\nWhen the husband was gone, and his boots, with the aid of her own\nfinishing touches, at last quite respectably brushed, the shepherdess\ntold the princess that she might go and play for a while, only she must\nnot go out of sight of the cottage-door.\n\nThe princess went right gladly, with the firm intention, however, of\ngetting out of sight by slow degrees, and then at once taking to her\nheels. But no sooner was she over the threshold than the shepherdess\nsaid to the dog, \u201cWatch her;\u201d and out shot Prince.\n\nThe moment she saw him, Rosamond threw herself on her face, trembling\nfrom head to foot. But the dog had no quarrel with her, and of the\nviolence against which he always felt bound to protest in dog fashion,\nthere was no sign in the prostrate shape before him; so he poked his\nnose under her, turned her over, and began licking her face and hands.\nWhen she saw that he meant to be friendly, her love for animals, which\nhad had no indulgence for a long time now, came wide awake, and in a\nlittle while they were romping and rushing about, the best friends in\nthe world.\n\nHaving thus seen one enemy, as she thought, changed to a friend, she\nbegan to resume her former plan, and crept cunningly farther and\nfarther. At length she came to a little hollow, and instantly rolled\ndown into it. Finding then that she was out of sight of the cottage,\nshe ran off at full speed.\n\nBut she had not gone more than a dozen paces, when she heard a growling\nrush behind her, and the next instant was on the ground, with the dog\nstanding over her, showing his teeth, and flaming at her with his eyes.\nShe threw her arms round his neck, and immediately he licked her face,\nand let her get up. But the moment she would have moved a step farther\nfrom the cottage, there he was it front of her, growling, and showing\nhis teeth. She saw it was of no use, and went back with him.\n\nThus was the princess provided with a dog for a private tutor\u2014just the\nright sort for her.\n\nPresently the shepherdess appeared at the door and called her. She\nwould have disregarded the summons, but Prince did his best to let her\nknow that, until she could obey herself, she must obey him. So she went\ninto the cottage, and there the shepherdess ordered her to peel the\npotatoes for dinner. She sulked and refused. Here Prince could do\nnothing to help his mistress, but she had not to go far to find another\nally.\n\n\u201cVery well, Miss Princess!\u201d she said; \u201cwe shall soon see how you like\nto go without when dinner-time comes.\u201d\n\nNow the princess had very little foresight, and the idea of future\nhunger would have moved her little; but happily, from her game of romps\nwith Prince, she had begun to be hungry already, and so the threat had\nforce. She took the knife and began to peel the potatoes.\n\nBy slow degrees the princess improved a little. A few more outbreaks of\npassion, and a few more savage attacks from Prince, and she had learned\nto try to restrain herself when she felt the passion coming on; while a\nfew dinnerless afternoons entirely opened her eyes to the necessity of\nworking in order to eat. Prince was her first, and Hunger her second\ndog-counsellor.\n\nBut a still better thing was that she soon grew very fond of Prince.\nTowards the gaining of her affections, he had three advantages: first,\nhis nature was inferior to hers; next, he was a beast; and last, she\nwas afraid of him; for so spoiled was she that she could more easily\nlove what was below than what was above her, and a beast, than one of\nher own kind, and indeed could hardly have ever come to love any thing\nmuch that she had not first learned to fear, and the white teeth and\nflaming eyes of the angry Prince were more terrible to her than any\nthing had yet been, except those of the wolf, which she had now\nforgotten. Then again, he was such a delightful playfellow, that so\nlong as she neither lost her temper, nor went against orders, she might\ndo almost any thing she pleased with him. In fact, such was his\ninfluence upon her, that she who had scoffed at the wisest woman in the\nwhole world, and derided the wishes of her own father and mother, came\nat length to regard this dog as a superior being, and to look up to him\nas well as love him. And this was best of all.\n\nThe improvement upon her, in the course of a month, was plain. She had\nquite ceased to go into passions, and had actually begun to take a\nlittle interest in her work and try to do it well.\n\nStill, the change was mostly an outside one. I do not mean that she was\npretending. Indeed she had never been given to pretence of any sort.\nBut the change was not in _her_, only in her mood. A second change of\ncircumstances would have soon brought a second change of behavior; and,\nso long as that was possible, she continued the same sort of person she\nhad always been. But if she had not gained much, a trifle had been\ngained for her: a little quietness and order of mind, and hence a\nsomewhat greater possibility of the first idea of right arising in it,\nwhereupon she would begin to see what a wretched creature she was, and\nmust continue until she herself was right.\n\nMeantime the wise woman had been watching her when she least fancied\nit, and taking note of the change that was passing upon her. Out of the\nlarge eyes of a gentle sheep she had been watching her\u2014a sheep that\npuzzled the shepherd; for every now and then she would appear in his\nflock, and he would catch sight of her two or three times in a day,\nsometimes for days together, yet he never saw her when he looked for\nher, and never when he counted the flock into the fold at night. He\nknew she was not one of his; but where could she come from, and where\ncould she go to? For there was no other flock within many miles, and he\nnever could get near enough to her to see whether or not she was\nmarked. Nor was Prince of the least use to him for the unravelling of\nthe mystery; for although, as often as he told him to fetch the strange\nsheep, he went bounding to her at once, it was only to lie down at her\nfeet.\n\nAt length, however, the wise woman had made up her mind, and after that\nthe strange sheep no longer troubled the shepherd.\n\nAs Rosamond improved, the shepherdess grew kinder. She gave her all\nAgnes\u2019s clothes, and began to treat her much more like a daughter.\nHence she had a great deal of liberty after the little work required of\nher was over, and would often spend hours at a time with the shepherd,\nwatching the sheep and the dogs, and learning a little from seeing how\nPrince, and the others as well, managed their charge\u2014how they never\ntouched the sheep that did as they were told and turned when they were\nbid, but jumped on a disobedient flock, and ran along their backs,\nbiting, and barking, and half choking themselves with mouthfuls of\ntheir wool.\n\nThen also she would play with the brooks, and learn their songs, and\nbuild bridges over them. And sometimes she would be seized with such\ndelight of heart that she would spread out her arms to the wind, and go\nrushing up the hill till her breath left her, when she would tumble\ndown in the heather, and lie there till it came back again.\n\nA noticeable change had by this time passed also on her countenance.\nHer coarse shapeless mouth had begun to show a glimmer of lines and\ncurves about it, and the fat had not returned with the roses to her\ncheeks, so that her eyes looked larger than before; while, more\nnoteworthy still, the bridge of her nose had grown higher, so that it\nwas less of the impudent, insignificant thing inherited from a certain\ngreat-great-great-grandmother, who had little else to leave her. For a\nlong time, it had fitted her very well, for it was just like her; but\nnow there was ground for alteration, and already the granny who gave it\nher would not have recognized it. It was growing a little liker\nPrince\u2019s; and Prince\u2019s was a long, perceptive, sagacious nose,\u2014one that\nwas seldom mistaken.\n\nOne day about noon, while the sheep were mostly lying down, and the\nshepherd, having left them to the care of the dogs, was himself\nstretched under the shade of a rock a little way apart, and the\nprincess sat knitting, with Prince at her feet, lying in wait for a\nsnap at a great fly, for even he had his follies\u2014Rosamond saw a poor\nwoman come toiling up the hill, but took little notice of her until she\nwas passing, a few yards off, when she heard her utter the dog\u2019s name\nin a low voice.\n\nImmediately on the summons, Prince started up and followed her\u2014with\nhanging head, but gently-wagging tail. At first the princess thought he\nwas merely taking observations, and consulting with his nose whether\nshe was respectable or not, but she soon saw that he was following her\nin meek submission. Then she sprung to her feet and cried, \u201cPrince,\nPrince!\u201d But Prince only turned his head and gave her an odd look, as\nif he were trying to smile, and could not. Then the princess grew\nangry, and ran after him, shouting, \u201cPrince, come here directly.\u201d Again\nPrince turned his head, but this time to growl and show his teeth.\n\nThe princess flew into one of her forgotten rages, and picking up a\nstone, flung it at the woman. Prince turned and darted at her, with\nfury in his eyes, and his white teeth gleaming. At the awful sight the\nprincess turned also, and would have fled, but he was upon her in a\nmoment, and threw her to the ground, and there she lay.\n\nIt was evening when she came to herself. A cool twilight wind, that\nsomehow seemed to come all the way from the stars, was blowing upon\nher. The poor woman and Prince, the shepherd and his sheep, were all\ngone, and she was left alone with the wind upon the heather.\n\nShe felt sad, weak, and, perhaps, for the first time in her life, a\nlittle ashamed. The violence of which she had been guilty had vanished\nfrom her spirit, and now lay in her memory with the calm morning behind\nit, while in front the quiet dusky night was now closing in the loud\nshame betwixt a double peace. Between the two her passion looked ugly.\nIt pained her to remember. She felt it was hateful, and _hers_.\n\nBut, alas, Prince was gone! That horrid woman had taken him away! The\nfury rose again in her heart, and raged\u2014until it came to her mind how\nher dear Prince would have flown at her throat if he had seen her in\nsuch a passion. The memory calmed her, and she rose and went home.\nThere, perhaps, she would find Prince, for surely he could never have\nbeen such a silly dog as go away altogether with a strange woman!\n\nShe opened the door and went in. Dogs were asleep all about the\ncottage, it seemed to her, but nowhere was Prince. She crept away to\nher little bed, and cried herself asleep.\n\nIn the morning the shepherd and shepherdess were indeed glad to find\nshe had come home, for they thought she had run away.\n\n\u201cWhere is Prince?\u201d she cried, the moment she waked.\n\n\u201cHis mistress has taken him,\u201d answered the shepherd.\n\n\u201cWas that woman his mistress?\u201d\n\n\u201cI fancy so. He followed her as if he had known her all his life. I am\nvery sorry to lose him, though.\u201d\n\nThe poor woman had gone close past the rock where the shepherd lay. He\nsaw her coming, and thought of the strange sheep which had been feeding\nbeside him when he lay down. \u201cWho can she be?\u201d he said to himself; but\nwhen he noted how Prince followed her, without even looking up at him\nas he passed, he remembered how Prince had come to him. And this was\nhow: as he lay in bed one fierce winter morning, just about to rise, he\nheard the voice of a woman call to him through the storm, \u201cShepherd, I\nhave brought you a dog. Be good to him. I will come again and fetch him\naway.\u201d He dressed as quickly as he could, and went to the door. It was\nhalf snowed up, but on the top of the white mound before it stood\nPrince. And now he had gone as mysteriously as he had come, and he felt\nsad.\n\nRosamond was very sorry too, and hence when she saw the looks of the\nshepherd and shepherdess, she was able to understand them. And she\ntried for a while to behave better to them because of their sorrow. So\nthe loss of the dog brought them all nearer to each other.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\n\nAfter the thunder-storm, Agnes did not meet with a single obstruction\nor misadventure. Everybody was strangely polite, gave her whatever she\ndesired, and answered her questions, but asked none in return, and\nlooked all the time as if her departure would be a relief. They were\nafraid, in fact, from her appearance, lest she should tell them that\nshe was lost, when they would be bound, on pain of public execution, to\ntake her to the palace.\n\nBut no sooner had she entered the city than she saw it would hardly do\nto present herself as a lost child at the palace-gates; for how were\nthey to know that she was not an impostor, especially since she really\nwas one, having run away from the wise woman? So she wandered about\nlooking at every thing until she was tired, and bewildered by the noise\nand confusion all around her. The wearier she got, the more was she\npushed in every direction. Having been used to a whole hill to wander\nupon, she was very awkward in the crowded streets, and often on the\npoint of being run over by the horses, which seemed to her to be going\nevery way like a frightened flock. She spoke to several persons, but no\none stopped to answer her; and at length, her courage giving way, she\nfelt lost indeed, and began to cry. A soldier saw her, and asked what\nwas the matter.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve nowhere to go to,\u201d she sobbed.\n\n\u201cWhere\u2019s your mother?\u201d asked the soldier.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d answered Agnes. \u201cI was carried off by an old woman, who\nthen went away and left me. I don\u2019t know where she is, or where I am\nmyself.\u201d\n\n\u201cCome,\u201d said the soldier, \u201cthis is a case for his Majesty.\u201d\n\nSo saying, he took her by the hand, led her to the palace, and begged\nan audience of the king and queen. The porter glanced at Agnes,\nimmediately admitted them, and showed them into a great splendid room,\nwhere the king and queen sat every day to review lost children, in the\nhope of one day thus finding their Rosamond. But they were by this time\nbeginning to get tired of it. The moment they cast their eyes upon\nAgnes, the queen threw back her head, threw up her hands, and cried,\n\u201cWhat a miserable, conceited, white-faced little ape!\u201d and the king\nturned upon the soldier in wrath, and cried, forgetting his own decree,\n\u201cWhat do you mean by bringing such a dirty, vulgar-looking, pert\ncreature into my palace? The dullest soldier in my army could never for\na moment imagine a child like _that_, one hair\u2019s-breadth like the\nlovely angel we lost!\u201d\n\n\u201cI humbly beg your Majesty\u2019s pardon,\u201d said the soldier, \u201cbut what was I\nto do? There stands your Majesty\u2019s proclamation in gold letters on the\nbrazen gates of the palace.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall have it taken down,\u201d said the king. \u201cRemove the child.\u201d\n\n\u201cPlease your Majesty, what am I to do with her?\u201d\n\n\u201cTake her home with you.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have six already, sire, and do not want her.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen drop her where you picked her up.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I do, sire, some one else will find her and bring her back to your\nMajesties.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat will never do,\u201d said the king. \u201cI cannot bear to look at her.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor all her ugliness,\u201d said the queen, \u201cshe is plainly lost, and so is\nour Rosamond.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt may be only a pretence, to get into the palace,\u201d said the king.\n\n\u201cTake her to the head scullion, soldier,\u201d said the queen, \u201cand tell her\nto make her useful. If she should find out she has been pretending to\nbe lost, she must let me know.\u201d\n\nThe soldier was so anxious to get rid of her, that he caught her up in\nhis arms, hurried her from the room, found his way to the scullery, and\ngave her, trembling with fear, in charge to the head maid, with the\nqueen\u2019s message.\n\nAs it was evident that the queen had no favor for her, the servants did\nas they pleased with her, and often treated her harshly. Not one\namongst them liked her, nor was it any wonder, seeing that, with every\nstep she took from the wise woman\u2019s house, she had grown more\ncontemptible, for she had grown more conceited. Every civil answer\ngiven her, she attributed to the impression she made, not to the desire\nto get rid of her; and every kindness, to approbation of her looks and\nspeech, instead of friendliness to a lonely child. Hence by this time\nshe was twice as odious as before; for whoever has had such severe\ntreatment as the wise woman gave her, and is not the better for it,\nalways grows worse than before. They drove her about, boxed her ears on\nthe smallest provocation, laid every thing to her charge, called her\nall manner of contemptuous names, jeered and scoffed at her\nawkwardnesses, and made her life so miserable that she was in a fair\nway to forget every thing she had learned, and know nothing but how to\nclean saucepans and kettles.\n\nThey would not have been so hard upon her, however, but for her\nirritating behavior. She dared not refuse to do as she was told, but\nshe obeyed now with a pursed-up mouth, and now with a contemptuous\nsmile. The only thing that sustained her was her constant contriving\nhow to get out of the painful position in which she found herself.\nThere is but one true way, however, of getting out of any position we\nmay be in, and that is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit\nfor a better: I need not say this was not the plan upon which Agnes was\ncunning enough to fix.\n\nShe had soon learned from the talk around her the reason of the\nproclamation which had brought her hither.\n\n\u201cWas the lost princess so very beautiful?\u201d she said one day to the\nyoungest of her fellow-servants.\n\n\u201cBeautiful!\u201d screamed the maid; \u201cshe was just the ugliest little toad\nyou ever set eyes upon.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was she like?\u201d asked Agnes.\n\n\u201cShe was about your size, and quite as ugly, only not in the same way;\nfor she had red cheeks, and a cocked little nose, and the biggest,\nugliest mouth you ever saw.\u201d\n\nAgnes fell a-thinking.\n\n\u201cIs there a picture of her anywhere in the palace?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cHow should I know? You can ask a housemaid.\u201d\n\nAgnes soon learned that there was one, and contrived to get a peep of\nit. Then she was certain of what she had suspected from the description\ngiven of her, namely, that she was the same she had seen in the picture\nat the wise woman\u2019s house. The conclusion followed, that the lost\nprincess must be staying with her father and mother, for assuredly in\nthe picture she wore one of her frocks.\n\nShe went to the head scullion, and with humble manner, but proud heart,\nbegged her to procure for her the favor of a word with the queen.\n\n\u201cA likely thing indeed!\u201d was the answer, accompanied by a resounding\nbox on the ear.\n\nShe tried the head cook next, but with no better success, and so was\ndriven to her meditations again, the result of which was that she began\nto drop hints that she knew something about the princess. This came at\nlength to the queen\u2019s ears, and she sent for her.\n\nAbsorbed in her own selfish ambitions, Agnes never thought of the risk\nto which she was about to expose her parents, but told the queen that\nin her wanderings she had caught sight of just such a lovely creature\nas she described the princess, only dressed like a peasant\u2014saying,\nthat, if the king would permit her to go and look for her, she had\nlittle doubt of bringing her back safe and sound within a few weeks.\n\nBut although she spoke the truth, she had such a look of cunning on her\npinched face, that the queen could not possibly trust her, but believed\nthat she made the proposal merely to get away, and have money given her\nfor her journey. Still there was a chance, and she would not say any\nthing until she had consulted the king.\n\nThen they had Agnes up before the lord chancellor, who, after much\nquestioning of her, arrived at last, he thought, at some notion of the\npart of the country described by her\u2014that was, if she spoke the truth,\nwhich, from her looks and behavior, he also considered entirely\ndoubtful. Thereupon she was ordered back to the kitchen, and a band of\nsoldiers, under a clever lawyer, sent out to search every foot of the\nsupposed region. They were commanded not to return until they brought\nwith them, bound hand and foot, such a shepherd pair as that of which\nthey received a full description.\n\nAnd now Agnes was worse off than before. For to her other miseries was\nadded the fear of what would befall her when it was discovered that the\npersons of whom they were in quest, and whom she was certain they must\nfind, were her own father and mother.\n\nBy this time the king and queen were so tired of seeing lost children,\ngenuine or pretended\u2014for they cared for no child any longer than there\nseemed a chance of its turning out their child\u2014that with this new hope,\nwhich, however poor and vague at first, soon began to grow upon such\nimaginations as they had, they commanded the proclamation to be taken\ndown from the palace gates, and directed the various sentries to admit\nno child whatever, lost or found, be the reason or pretence what it\nmight, until further orders.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m sick of children!\u201d said the king to his secretary, as he finished\ndictating the direction.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\n\nAfter Prince was gone, the princess, by degrees, fell back into some of\nher bad old ways, from which only the presence of the dog, not her own\nbetterment, had kept her. She never grew nearly so selfish again, but\nshe began to let her angry old self lift up its head once more, until\nby and by she grew so bad that the shepherdess declared she should not\nstop in the house a day longer, for she was quite unendurable.\n\n\u201cIt is all very well for you, husband,\u201d she said, \u201cfor you haven\u2019t her\nall day about you, and only see the best of her. But if you had her in\nwork instead of play hours, you would like her no better than I do. And\nthen it\u2019s not her ugly passions only, but when she\u2019s in one of her\ntantrums, it\u2019s impossible to get any work out of her. At such times\nshe\u2019s just as obstinate as\u2014as\u2014as\u201d\u2014\n\nShe was going to say \u201cas Agnes,\u201d but the feelings of a mother overcame\nher, and she could not utter the words.\n\n\u201cIn fact,\u201d she said instead, \u201cshe makes my life miserable.\u201d\n\nThe shepherd felt he had no right to tell his wife she must submit to\nhave her life made miserable, and therefore, although he was really\nmuch attached to Rosamond, he would not interfere; and the shepherdess\ntold her she must look out for another place.\n\nThe princess was, however, this much better than before, even in\nrespect of her passions, that they were not quite so bad, and after one\nwas over, she was really ashamed of it. But not once, ever since the\ndeparture of Prince had she tried to check the rush of the evil temper\nwhen it came upon her. She hated it when she was out of it, and that\nwas something; but while she was in it, she went full swing with it\nwherever the prince of the power of it pleased to carry her. Nor was\nthis all: although she might by this time have known well enough that\nas soon as she was out of it she was certain to be ashamed of it, she\nwould yet justify it to herself with twenty different arguments that\nlooked very good at the time, but would have looked very poor indeed\nafterwards, if then she had ever remembered them.\n\nShe was not sorry to leave the shepherd\u2019s cottage, for she felt certain\nof soon finding her way back to her father and mother; and she would,\nindeed, have set out long before, but that her foot had somehow got\nhurt when Prince gave her his last admonition, and she had never since\nbeen able for long walks, which she sometimes blamed as the cause of\nher temper growing worse. But if people are good-tempered only when\nthey are comfortable, what thanks have they?\u2014Her foot was now much\nbetter; and as soon as the shepherdess had thus spoken, she resolved to\nset out at once, and work or beg her way home. At the moment she was\nquite unmindful of what she owed the good people, and, indeed, was as\nyet incapable of understanding a tenth part of her obligation to them.\nSo she bade them good by without a tear, and limped her way down the\nhill, leaving the shepherdess weeping, and the shepherd looking very\ngrave.\n\nWhen she reached the valley she followed the course of the stream,\nknowing only that it would lead her away from the hill where the sheep\nfed, into richer lands where were farms and cattle. Rounding one of the\nroots of the hill she saw before her a poor woman walking slowly along\nthe road with a burden of heather upon her back, and presently passed\nher, but had gone only a few paces farther when she heard her calling\nafter her in a kind old voice\u2014\n\n\u201cYour shoe-tie is loose, my child.\u201d\n\nBut Rosamond was growing tired, for her foot had become painful, and so\nshe was cross, and neither returned answer, nor paid heed to the\nwarning. For when we are cross, all our other faults grow busy, and\npoke up their ugly heads like maggots, and the princess\u2019s old dislike\nto doing any thing that came to her with the least air of advice about\nit returned in full force.\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d said the woman again, \u201cif you don\u2019t fasten your shoe-tie,\nit will make you fall.\u201d\n\n\u201cMind your own business,\u201d said Rosamond, without even turning her head,\nand had not gone more than three steps when she fell flat on her face\non the path. She tried to get up, but the effort forced from her a\nscream, for she had sprained the ankle of the foot that was already\nlame.\n\nThe old woman was by her side instantly.\n\n\u201cWhere are you hurt, child?\u201d she asked, throwing down her burden and\nkneeling beside her.\n\n\u201cGo away,\u201d screamed Rosamond. \u201c_You_ made me fall, you bad woman!\u201d\n\nThe woman made no reply, but began to feel her joints, and soon\ndiscovered the sprain. Then, in spite of Rosamond\u2019s abuse, and the\nviolent pushes and even kicks she gave her, she took the hurt ankle in\nher hands, and stroked and pressed it, gently kneading it, as it were,\nwith her thumbs, as if coaxing every particle of the muscles into its\nright place. Nor had she done so long before Rosamond lay still. At\nlength she ceased, and said:\u2014\n\n\u201cNow, my child, you may get up.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t get up, and I\u2019m not your child,\u201d cried Rosamond. \u201cGo away.\u201d\n\nWithout another word the woman left her, took up her burden, and\ncontinued her journey.\n\nIn a little while Rosamond tried to get up, and not only succeeded, but\nfound she could walk, and, indeed, presently discovered that her ankle\nand foot also were now perfectly well.\n\n\u201cI wasn\u2019t much hurt after all,\u201d she said to herself, nor sent a single\ngrateful thought after the poor woman, whom she speedily passed once\nmore upon the road without even a greeting.\n\nLate in the afternoon she came to a spot where the path divided into\ntwo, and was taking the one she liked the look of better, when she\nstarted at the sound of the poor woman\u2019s voice, whom she thought she\nhad left far behind, again calling her. She looked round, and there she\nwas, toiling under her load of heather as before.\n\n\u201cYou are taking the wrong turn, child.\u201d she cried.\n\n\u201cHow can you tell that?\u201d said Rosamond. \u201cYou know nothing about where I\nwant to go.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know that road will take you where you won\u2019t want to go,\u201d said the\nwoman.\n\n\u201cI shall know when I get there, then,\u201d returned Rosamond, \u201cand no\nthanks to you.\u201d\n\nShe set off running. The woman took the other path, and was soon out of\nsight.\n\nBy and by, Rosamond found herself in the midst of a peat-moss\u2014a flat,\nlonely, dismal, black country. She thought, however, that the road\nwould soon lead her across to the other side of it among the farms, and\nwent on without anxiety. But the stream, which had hitherto been her\nguide, had now vanished; and when it began to grow dark, Rosamond found\nthat she could no longer distinguish the track. She turned, therefore,\nbut only to find that the same darkness covered it behind as well as\nbefore. Still she made the attempt to go back by keeping as direct a\nline as she could, for the path was straight as an arrow. But she could\nnot see enough even to start her in a line, and she had not gone far\nbefore she found herself hemmed in, apparently on every side, by\nditches and pools of black, dismal, slimy water. And now it was so dark\nthat she could see nothing more than the gleam of a bit of clear sky\nnow and then in the water. Again and again she stepped knee-deep in\nblack mud, and once tumbled down in the shallow edge of a terrible\npool; after which she gave up the attempt to escape the meshes of the\nwatery net, stood still, and began to cry bitterly, despairingly. She\nsaw now that her unreasonable anger had made her foolish as well as\nrude, and felt that she was justly punished for her wickedness to the\npoor woman who had been so friendly to her. What would Prince think of\nher, if he knew? She cast herself on the ground, hungry, and cold, and\nweary.\n\nPresently, she thought she saw long creatures come heaving out of the\nblack pools. A toad jumped upon her, and she shrieked, and sprang to\nher feet, and would have run away headlong, when she spied in the\ndistance a faint glimmer. She thought it was a Will-o\u2019-the-wisp. What\ncould he be after? Was he looking for her? She dared not run, lest he\nshould see and pounce upon her. The light came nearer, and grew\nbrighter and larger. Plainly, the little fiend was looking for her\u2014he\nwould torment her. After many twistings and turnings among the pools,\nit came straight towards her, and she would have shrieked, but that\nterror made her dumb.\n\nIt came nearer and nearer, and lo! it was borne by a dark figure, with\na burden on its back: it was the poor woman, and no demon, that was\nlooking for her! She gave a scream of joy, fell down weeping at her\nfeet, and clasped her knees. Then the poor woman threw away her burden,\nlaid down her lantern, took the princess up in her arms, folded her\ncloak around her, and having taken up her lantern again, carried her\nslowly and carefully through the midst of the black pools, winding\nhither and thither. All night long she carried her thus, slowly and\nwearily, until at length the darkness grew a little thinner, an\nuncertain hint of light came from the east, and the poor woman,\nstopping on the brow of a little hill, opened her cloak, and set the\nprincess down.\n\n\u201cI can carry you no farther,\u201d she said. \u201cSit there on the grass till\nthe light comes. I will stand here by you.\u201d\n\nRosamond had been asleep. Now she rubbed her eyes and looked, but it\nwas too dark to see any thing more than that there was a sky over her\nhead. Slowly the light grew, until she could see the form of the poor\nwoman standing in front of her; and as it went on growing, she began to\nthink she had seen her somewhere before, till all at once she thought\nof the wise woman, and saw it must be she. Then she was so ashamed that\nshe bent down her head, and could look at her no longer. But the poor\nwoman spoke, and the voice was that of the wise woman, and every word\nwent deep into the heart of the princess.\n\n\u201cRosamond,\u201d she said, \u201call this time, ever since I carried you from\nyour father\u2019s palace, I have been doing what I could to make you a\nlovely creature: ask yourself how far I have succeeded.\u201d\n\nAll her past story, since she found herself first under the wise\nwoman\u2019s cloak, arose, and glided past the inner eyes of the princess,\nand she saw, and in a measure understood, it all. But she sat with her\neyes on the ground, and made no sign.\n\nThen said the wise woman:\u2014\n\n\u201cBelow there is the forest which surrounds my house. I am going home.\nIf you pledge to come there to me, I will help you, in a way I could\nnot do now, to be good and lovely. I will wait you there all day, but\nif you start at once, you may be there long before noon. I shall have\nyour breakfast waiting for you. One thing more: the beasts have not yet\nall gone home to their holes; but I give you my word, not one will\ntouch you so long as you keep coming nearer to my house.\u201d\n\nShe ceased. Rosamond sat waiting to hear something more; but nothing\ncame. She looked up; she was alone.\n\nAlone once more! Always being left alone, because she would not yield\nto what was right! Oh, how safe she had felt under the wise woman\u2019s\ncloak! She had indeed been good to her, and she had in return behaved\nlike one of the hyenas of the awful wood! What a wonderful house it was\nshe lived in! And again all her own story came up into her brain from\nher repentant heart.\n\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t she take me with her?\u201d she said. \u201cI would have gone\ngladly.\u201d And she wept. But her own conscience told her that, in the\nvery middle of her shame and desire to be good, she had returned no\nanswer to the words of the wise woman; she had sat like a tree-stump,\nand done nothing. She tried to say there was nothing to be done; but\nshe knew at once that she could have told the wise woman she had been\nvery wicked, and asked her to take her with her. Now there was nothing\nto be done.\n\n\u201cNothing to be done!\u201d said her conscience. \u201cCannot you rise, and walk\ndown the hill, and through the wood?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the wild beasts!\u201d\n\n\u201cThere it is! You don\u2019t believe the wise woman yet! Did she not tell\nyou the beasts would not touch you?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut they are so horrid!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, they are; but it would be far better to be eaten up alive by them\nthan live on\u2014such a worthless creature as you are. Why, you\u2019re not fit\nto be thought about by any but bad ugly creatures.\u201d\n\nThis was how herself talked to her.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\n\nAll at once she jumped to her feet, and ran at full speed down the hill\nand into the wood. She heard howlings and yellings on all sides of her,\nbut she ran straight on, as near as she could judge. Her spirits rose\nas she ran. Suddenly she saw before her, in the dusk of the thick wood,\na group of some dozen wolves and hyenas, standing all together right in\nher way, with their green eyes fixed upon her staring. She faltered one\nstep, then bethought her of what the wise woman had promised, and\nkeeping straight on, dashed right into the middle of them. They fled\nhowling, as if she had struck them with fire. She was no more afraid\nafter that, and ere the sun was up she was out of the wood and upon the\nheath, which no bad thing could step upon and live. With the first peep\nof the sun above the horizon, she saw the little cottage before her,\nand ran as fast as she could run towards it, When she came near it, she\nsaw that the door was open, and ran straight into the outstretched arms\nof the wise woman.\n\nThe wise woman kissed her and stroked her hair, set her down by the\nfire, and gave her a bowl of bread and milk.\n\nWhen she had eaten it she drew her before her where she sat, and spoke\nto her thus:\u2014\n\n\u201cRosamond, if you would be a blessed creature instead of a mere wretch,\nyou must submit to be tried.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs that something terrible?\u201d asked the princess, turning white.\n\n\u201cNo, my child; but it is something very difficult to come well out of.\nNobody who has not been tried knows how difficult it is; but whoever\nhas come well out of it, and those who do not overcome never do come\nout of it, always looks back with horror, not on what she has come\nthrough, but on the very idea of the possibility of having failed, and\nbeing still the same miserable creature as before.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou will tell me what it is before it begins?\u201d said the princess.\n\n\u201cI will not tell you exactly. But I will tell you some things to help\nyou. One great danger is that perhaps you will think you are in it\nbefore it has really begun, and say to yourself, \u2018Oh! this is really\nnothing to me. It may be a trial to some, but for me I am sure it is\nnot worth mentioning.\u2019 And then, before you know, it will be upon you,\nand you will fail utterly and shamefully.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will be very, very careful,\u201d said the princess. \u201cOnly don\u2019t let me\nbe frightened.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou shall not be frightened, except it be your own doing. You are\nalready a brave girl, and there is no occasion to try you more that\nway. I saw how you rushed into the middle of the ugly creatures; and as\nthey ran from you, so will all kinds of evil things, as long as you\nkeep them outside of you, and do not open the cottage of your heart to\nlet them in. I will tell you something more about what you will have to\ngo through.\n\n\u201cNobody can be a real princess\u2014do not imagine you have yet been any\nthing more than a mock one\u2014until she is a princess over herself, that\nis, until, when she finds herself unwilling to do the thing that is\nright, she makes herself do it. So long as any mood she is in makes her\ndo the thing she will be sorry for when that mood is over, she is a\nslave, and no princess. A princess is able to do what is right even\nshould she unhappily be in a mood that would make another unable to do\nit. For instance, if you should be cross and angry, you are not a whit\nthe less bound to be just, yes, kind even\u2014a thing most difficult in\nsuch a mood\u2014though ease itself in a good mood, loving and sweet.\nWhoever does what she is bound to do, be she the dirtiest little girl\nin the street, is a princess, worshipful, honorable. Nay, more; her\nmight goes farther than she could send it, for if she act so, the evil\nmood will wither and die, and leave her loving and clean.\u2014Do you\nunderstand me, dear Rosamond?\u201d\n\nAs she spoke, the wise woman laid her hand on her head and looked\u2014oh,\nso lovingly!\u2014into her eyes.\n\n\u201cI am not sure,\u201d said the princess, humbly.\n\n\u201cPerhaps you will understand me better if I say it just comes to this,\nthat you must _not do_ what is wrong, however much you are inclined to\ndo it, and you must _do_ what is right, however much you are\ndisinclined to do it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI understand that,\u201d said the princess.\n\n\u201cI am going, then, to put you in one of the mood-chambers of which I\nhave many in the house. Its mood will come upon you, and you will have\nto deal with it.\u201d\n\nShe rose and took her by the hand. The princess trembled a little, but\nnever thought of resisting.\n\nThe wise woman led her into the great hall with the pictures, and\nthrough a door at the farther end, opening upon another large hall,\nwhich was circular, and had doors close to each other all round it. Of\nthese she opened one, pushed the princess gently in, and closed it\nbehind her.\n\nThe princess found herself in her old nursery. Her little white rabbit\ncame to meet her in a lumping canter as if his back were going to\ntumble over his head. Her nurse, in her rocking-chair by the chimney\ncorner, sat just as she had used. The fire burned brightly, and on the\ntable were many of her wonderful toys, on which, however, she now\nlooked with some contempt. Her nurse did not seem at all surprised to\nsee her, any more than if the princess had but just gone from the room\nand returned again.\n\n\u201cOh! how different I am from what I used to be!\u201d thought the princess\nto herself, looking from her toys to her nurse. \u201cThe wise woman has\ndone me so much good already! I will go and see mamma at once, and tell\nher I am very glad to be at home again, and very sorry I was so\nnaughty.\u201d\n\nShe went towards the door.\n\n\u201cYour queen-mamma, princess, cannot see you now,\u201d said her nurse.\n\n\u201cI have yet to learn that it is my part to take orders from a servant,\u201d\nsaid the princess with temper and dignity.\n\n\u201cI beg your pardon, princess,\u201d returned her nurse, politely; \u201cbut it is\nmy duty to tell you that your queen-mamma is at this moment engaged.\nShe is alone with her most intimate friend, the Princess of the Frozen\nRegions.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall see for myself,\u201d returned the princess, bridling, and walked\nto the door.\n\nNow little bunny, leap-frogging near the door, happened that moment to\nget about her feet, just as she was going to open it, so that she\ntripped and fell against it, striking her forehead a good blow. She\ncaught up the rabbit in a rage, and, crying, \u201cIt is all your fault, you\nugly old wretch!\u201d threw it with violence in her nurse\u2019s face.\n\nHer nurse caught the rabbit, and held it to her face, as if seeking to\nsooth its fright. But the rabbit looked very limp and odd, and, to her\namazement, Rosamond presently saw that the thing was no rabbit, but a\npocket-handkerchief. The next moment she removed it from her face, and\nRosamond beheld\u2014not her nurse, but the wise woman\u2014standing on her own\nhearth, while she herself stood by the door leading from the cottage\ninto the hall.\n\n\u201cFirst trial a failure,\u201d said the wise woman quietly.\n\nOvercome with shame, Rosamond ran to her, fell down on her knees, and\nhid her face in her dress.\n\n\u201cNeed I say any thing?\u201d said the wise woman, stroking her hair.\n\n\u201cNo, no,\u201d cried the princess. \u201cI am horrid.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know now the kind of thing you have to meet: are you ready to try\nagain?\u201d\n\n\u201c_May_ I try again?\u201d cried the princess, jumping up. \u201cI\u2019m ready. I do\nnot think I shall fail this time.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe trial will be harder.\u201d\n\nRosamond drew in her breath, and set her teeth. The wise woman looked\nat her pitifully, but took her by the hand, led her to the round hall,\nopened the same door, and closed it after her.\n\nThe princess expected to find herself again in the nursery, but in the\nwise woman\u2019s house no one ever has the same trial twice. She was in a\nbeautiful garden, full of blossoming trees and the loveliest roses and\nlilies. A lake was in the middle of it, with a tiny boat. So delightful\nwas it that Rosamond forgot all about how or why she had come there,\nand lost herself in the joy of the flowers and the trees and the water.\nPresently came the shout of a child, merry and glad, and from a clump\nof tulip trees rushed a lovely little boy, with his arms stretched out\nto her. She was charmed at the sight, ran to meet him, caught him up in\nher arms, kissed him, and could hardly let him go again. But the moment\nshe set him down he ran from her towards the lake, looking back as he\nran, and crying \u201cCome, come.\u201d\n\nShe followed. He made straight for the boat, clambered into it, and\nheld out his hand to help her in. Then he caught up the little\nboat-hook, and pushed away from the shore: there was a great white\nflower floating a few yards off, and that was the little fellow\u2019s goal.\nBut, alas! no sooner had Rosamond caught sight of it, huge and glowing\nas a harvest moon, than she felt a great desire to have it herself. The\nboy, however, was in the bows of the boat, and caught it first. It had\na long stem, reaching down to the bottom of the water, and for a moment\nhe tugged at it in vain, but at last it gave way so suddenly, that he\ntumbled back with the flower into the bottom of the boat. Then\nRosamond, almost wild at the danger it was in as he struggled to rise,\nhurried to save it, but somehow between them it came in pieces, and all\nits petals of fretted silver were scattered about the boat. When the\nboy got up, and saw the ruin his companion had occasioned, he burst\ninto tears, and having the long stalk of the flower still in his hand,\nstruck her with it across the face. It did not hurt her much, for he\nwas a very little fellow, but it was wet and slimy. She tumbled rather\nthan rushed at him, seized him in her arms, tore him from his\nfrightened grasp, and flung him into the water. His head struck on the\nboat as he fell, and he sank at once to the bottom, where he lay\nlooking up at her with white face and open eyes.\n\nThe moment she saw the consequences of her deed she was filled with\nhorrible dismay. She tried hard to reach down to him through the water,\nbut it was far deeper than it looked, and she could not. Neither could\nshe get her eyes to leave the white face: its eyes fascinated and fixed\nhers; and there she lay leaning over the boat and staring at the death\nshe had made. But a voice crying, \u201cAlly! Ally!\u201d shot to her heart, and\nspringing to her feet she saw a lovely lady come running down the grass\nto the brink of the water with her hair flying about her head.\n\n\u201cWhere is my Ally?\u201d she shrieked.\n\nBut Rosamond could not answer, and only stared at the lady, as she had\nbefore stared at her drowned boy.\n\nThen the lady caught sight of the dead thing at the bottom of the\nwater, and rushed in, and, plunging down, struggled and groped until\nshe reached it. Then she rose and stood up with the dead body of her\nlittle son in her arms, his head hanging back, and the water streaming\nfrom him.\n\n\u201cSee what you have made of him, Rosamond!\u201d she said, holding the body\nout to her; \u201cand this is your second trial, and also a failure.\u201d\n\nThe dead child melted away from her arms, and there she stood, the wise\nwoman, on her own hearth, while Rosamond found herself beside the\nlittle well on the floor of the cottage, with one arm wet up to the\nshoulder. She threw herself on the heather-bed and wept from relief and\nvexation both.\n\nThe wise woman walked out of the cottage, shut the door, and left her\nalone. Rosamond was sobbing, so that she did not hear her go. When at\nlength she looked up, and saw that the wise woman was gone, her misery\nreturned afresh and tenfold, and she wept and wailed. The hours passed,\nthe shadows of evening began to fall, and the wise woman entered.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\n\nShe went straight to the bed, and taking Rosamond in her arms, sat down\nwith her by the fire.\n\n\u201cMy poor child!\u201d she said. \u201cTwo terrible failures! And the more the\nharder! They get stronger and stronger. What is to be done?\u201d\n\n\u201cCouldn\u2019t you help me?\u201d said Rosamond piteously.\n\n\u201cPerhaps I could, now you ask me,\u201d answered the wise woman. \u201cWhen you\nare ready to try again, we shall see.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am very tired of myself,\u201d said the princess. \u201cBut I can\u2019t rest till\nI try again.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is the only way to get rid of your weary, shadowy self, and find\nyour strong, true self. Come, my child; I will help you all I can, for\nnow I _can_ help you.\u201d\n\nYet again she led her to the same door, and seemed to the princess to\nsend her yet again alone into the room. She was in a forest, a place\nhalf wild, half tended. The trees were grand, and full of the loveliest\nbirds, of all glowing gleaming and radiant colors, which, unlike the\nbrilliant birds we know in our world, sang deliciously, every one\naccording to his color. The trees were not at all crowded, but their\nleaves were so thick, and their boughs spread so far, that it was only\nhere and there a sunbeam could get straight through. All the gentle\ncreatures of a forest were there, but no creatures that killed, not\neven a weasel to kill the rabbits, or a beetle to eat the snails out of\ntheir striped shells. As to the butterflies, words would but wrong them\nif they tried to tell how gorgeous they were. The princess\u2019s delight\nwas so great that she neither laughed nor ran, but walked about with a\nsolemn countenance and stately step.\n\n\u201cBut where are the flowers?\u201d she said to herself at length.\n\nThey were nowhere. Neither on the high trees, nor on the few shrubs\nthat grew here and there amongst them, were there any blossoms; and in\nthe grass that grew everywhere there was not a single flower to be\nseen.\n\n\u201cAh, well!\u201d said Rosamond again to herself, \u201cwhere all the birds and\nbutterflies are living flowers, we can do without the other sort.\u201d\n\nStill she could not help feeling that flowers were wanted to make the\nbeauty of the forest complete.\n\nSuddenly she came out on a little open glade; and there, on the root of\na great oak, sat the loveliest little girl, with her lap full of\nflowers of all colors, but of such kinds as Rosamond had never before\nseen. She was playing with them\u2014burying her hands in them, tumbling\nthem about, and every now and then picking one from the rest, and\nthrowing it away. All the time she never smiled, except with her eyes,\nwhich were as full as they could hold of the laughter of the spirit\u2014a\nlaughter which in this world is never heard, only sets the eyes alight\nwith a liquid shining. Rosamond drew nearer, for the wonderful creature\nwould have drawn a tiger to her side, and tamed him on the way. A few\nyards from her, she came upon one of her cast-away flowers and stooped\nto pick it up, as well she might where none grew save in her own\nlonging. But to her amazement she found, instead of a flower thrown\naway to wither, one fast rooted and quite at home. She left it, and\nwent to another; but it also was fast in the soil, and growing\ncomfortably in the warm grass. What could it mean? One after another\nshe tried, until at length she was satisfied that it was the same with\nevery flower the little girl threw from her lap.\n\nShe watched then until she saw her throw one, and instantly bounded to\nthe spot. But the flower had been quicker than she: there it grew, fast\nfixed in the earth, and, she thought, looked at her roguishly.\nSomething evil moved in her, and she plucked it.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t! don\u2019t!\u201d cried the child. \u201cMy flowers cannot live in your\nhands.\u201d\n\nRosamond looked at the flower. It was withered already. She threw it\nfrom her, offended. The child rose, with difficulty keeping her lapful\ntogether, picked it up, carried it back, sat down again, spoke to it,\nkissed it, sang to it\u2014oh! such a sweet, childish little song!\u2014the\nprincess never could recall a word of it\u2014and threw it away. Up rose its\nlittle head, and there it was, busy growing again!\n\nRosamond\u2019s bad temper soon gave way: the beauty and sweetness of the\nchild had overcome it; and, anxious to make friends with her, she drew\nnear, and said:\n\n\u201cWon\u2019t you give me a little flower, please, you beautiful child?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere they are; they are all for you,\u201d answered the child, pointing\nwith her outstretched arm and forefinger all round.\n\n\u201cBut you told me, a minute ago, not to touch them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, indeed, I did.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey can\u2019t be mine, if I\u2019m not to touch them.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf, to call them yours, you must kill them, then they are not yours,\nand never, never can be yours. They are nobody\u2019s when they are dead.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you don\u2019t kill them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t pull them; I throw them away. I live them.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow is it that you make them grow?\u201d\n\n\u201cI say, \u2018You darling!\u2019 and throw it away and there it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere do you get them?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn my lap.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish you would let me throw one away.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you got any in your lap? Let me see.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; I have none.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you can\u2019t throw one away, if you haven\u2019t got one.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are mocking me!\u201d cried the princess.\n\n\u201cI am not mocking you,\u201d said the child, looking her full in the face,\nwith reproach in her large blue eyes.\n\n\u201cOh, that\u2019s where the flowers come from!\u201d said the princess to herself,\nthe moment she saw them, hardly knowing what she meant.\n\nThen the child rose as if hurt, and quickly threw away all the flowers\nshe had in her lap, but one by one, and without any sign of anger. When\nthey were all gone, she stood a moment, and then, in a kind of chanting\ncry, called, two or three times, \u201cPeggy! Peggy! Peggy!\u201d\n\nA low, glad cry, like the whinny of a horse, answered, and, presently,\nout of the wood on the opposite side of the glade, came gently trotting\nthe loveliest little snow-white pony, with great shining blue wings,\nhalf-lifted from his shoulders. Straight towards the little girl,\nneither hurrying nor lingering, he trotted with light elastic tread.\n\nRosamond\u2019s love for animals broke into a perfect passion of delight at\nthe vision. She rushed to meet the pony with such haste, that, although\nclearly the best trained animal under the sun, he started back,\nplunged, reared, and struck out with his fore-feet ere he had time to\nobserve what sort of a creature it was that had so startled him. When\nhe perceived it was a little girl, he dropped instantly upon all fours,\nand content with avoiding her, resumed his quiet trot in the direction\nof his mistress. Rosamond stood gazing after him in miserable\ndisappointment.\n\nWhen he reached the child, he laid his head on her shoulder, and she\nput her arm up round his neck; and after she had talked to him a\nlittle, he turned and came trotting back to the princess.\n\nAlmost beside herself with joy, she began caressing him in the rough\nway which, not-withstanding her love for them, she was in the habit of\nusing with animals; and she was not gentle enough, in herself even, to\nsee that he did not like it, and was only putting up with it for the\nsake of his mistress. But when, that she might jump upon his back, she\nlaid hold of one of his wings, and ruffled some of the blue feathers,\nhe wheeled suddenly about, gave his long tail a sharp whisk which threw\nher flat on the grass, and, trotting back to his mistress, bent down\nhis head before her as if asking excuse for ridding himself of the\nunbearable.\n\nThe princess was furious. She had forgotten all her past life up to the\ntime when she first saw the child: her beauty had made her forget, and\nyet she was now on the very borders of hating her. What she might have\ndone, or rather tried to do, had not Peggy\u2019s tail struck her down with\nsuch force that for a moment she could not rise, I cannot tell.\n\nBut while she lay half-stunned, her eyes fell on a little flower just\nunder them. It stared up in her face like the living thing it was, and\nshe could not take her eyes off its face. It was like a primrose trying\nto express doubt instead of confidence. It seemed to put her half in\nmind of something, and she felt as if shame were coming. She put out\nher hand to pluck it; but the moment her fingers touched it, the flower\nwithered up, and hung as dead on its stalks as if a flame of fire had\npassed over it.\n\nThen a shudder thrilled through the heart of the princess, and she\nthought with herself, saying\u2014\u201cWhat sort of a creature am I that the\nflowers wither when I touch them, and the ponies despise me with their\ntails? What a wretched, coarse, ill-bred creature I must be! There is\nthat lovely child giving life instead of death to the flowers, and a\nmoment ago I was hating her! I am made horrid, and I shall be horrid,\nand I hate myself, and yet I can\u2019t help being myself!\u201d\n\nShe heard the sound of galloping feet, and there was the pony, with the\nchild seated betwixt his wings, coming straight on at full speed for\nwhere she lay.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t care,\u201d she said. \u201cThey may trample me under their feet if they\nlike. I am tired and sick of myself\u2014a creature at whose touch the\nflowers wither!\u201d\n\nOn came the winged pony. But while yet some distance off, he gave a\ngreat bound, spread out his living sails of blue, rose yards and yards\nabove her in the air, and alighted as gently as a bird, just a few feet\non the other side of her. The child slipped down and came and kneeled\nover her.\n\n\u201cDid my pony hurt you?\u201d she said. \u201cI am so sorry!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, he hurt me,\u201d answered the princess, \u201cbut not more than I\ndeserved, for I took liberties with him, and he did not like it.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, you dear!\u201d said the little girl. \u201cI love you for talking so of my\nPeggy. He is a good pony, though a little playful sometimes. Would you\nlike a ride upon him?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou darling beauty!\u201d cried Rosamond, sobbing. \u201cI do love you so, you\nare so good. How did you become so sweet?\u201d\n\n\u201cWould you like to ride my pony?\u201d repeated the child, with a heavenly\nsmile in her eyes.\n\n\u201cNo, no; he is fit only for you. My clumsy body would hurt him,\u201d said\nRosamond.\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t mind me having such a pony?\u201d said the child.\n\n\u201cWhat! mind it?\u201d cried Rosamond, almost indignantly. Then remembering\ncertain thoughts that had but a few moments before passed through her\nmind, she looked on the ground and was silent.\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t mind it, then?\u201d repeated the child.\n\n\u201cI am very glad there is such a you and such a pony, and that such a\nyou has got such a pony,\u201d said Rosamond, still looking on the ground.\n\u201cBut I do wish the flowers would not die when I touch them. I was cross\nto see you make them grow, but now I should be content if only I did\nnot make them wither.\u201d\n\nAs she spoke, she stroked the little girl\u2019s bare feet, which were by\nher, half buried in the soft moss, and as she ended she laid her cheek\non them and kissed them.\n\n\u201cDear princess!\u201d said the little girl, \u201cthe flowers will not always\nwither at your touch. Try now\u2014only do not pluck it. Flowers ought never\nto be plucked except to give away. Touch it gently.\u201d\n\nA silvery flower, something like a snow-drop, grew just within her\nreach. Timidly she stretched out her hand and touched it. The flower\ntrembled, but neither shrank nor withered.\n\n\u201cTouch it again,\u201d said the child.\n\nIt changed color a little, and Rosamond fancied it grew larger.\n\n\u201cTouch it again,\u201d said the child.\n\nIt opened and grew until it was as large as a narcissus, and changed\nand deepened in color till it was a red glowing gold.\n\nRosamond gazed motionless. When the transfiguration of the flower was\nperfected, she sprang to her feet with clasped hands, but for very\necstasy of joy stood speechless, gazing at the child.\n\n\u201cDid you never see me before, Rosamond?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cNo, never,\u201d answered the princess. \u201cI never saw any thing half so\nlovely.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook at me,\u201d said the child.\n\nAnd as Rosamond looked, the child began, like the flower, to grow\nlarger. Quickly through every gradation of growth she passed, until she\nstood before her a woman perfectly beautiful, neither old nor young;\nfor hers was the old age of everlasting youth.\n\nRosamond was utterly enchanted, and stood gazing without word or\nmovement until she could endure no more delight. Then her mind\ncollapsed to the thought\u2014had the pony grown too? She glanced round.\nThere was no pony, no grass, no flowers, no bright-birded forest\u2014but\nthe cottage of the wise woman\u2014and before her, on the hearth of it, the\ngoddess-child, the only thing unchanged.\n\nShe gasped with astonishment.\n\n\u201cYou must set out for your father\u2019s palace immediately,\u201d said the lady.\n\n\u201cBut where is the wise woman?\u201d asked Rosamond, looking all about.\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d said the lady.\n\nAnd Rosamond, looking again, saw the wise woman, folded as usual in her\nlong dark cloak.\n\n\u201cAnd it was you all the time?\u201d she cried in delight, and kneeled before\nher, burying her face in her garments.\n\n\u201cIt always is me, all the time,\u201d said the wise woman, smiling.\n\n\u201cBut which is the real you?\u201d asked Rosamond; \u201cthis or that?\u201d\n\n\u201cOr a thousand others?\u201d returned the wise woman. \u201cBut the one you have\njust seen is the likest to the real me that you are able to see just\nyet\u2014but\u2014. And that me you could not have seen a little while ago.\u2014But,\nmy darling child,\u201d she went on, lifting her up and clasping her to her\nbosom, \u201cyou must not think, because you have seen me once, that\ntherefore you are capable of seeing me at all times. No; there are many\nthings in you yet that must be changed before that can be. Now,\nhowever, you will seek me. Every time you feel you want me, that is a\nsign I am wanting you. There are yet many rooms in my house you may\nhave to go through; but when you need no more of them, then you will be\nable to throw flowers like the little girl you saw in the forest.\u201d\n\nThe princess gave a sigh.\n\n\u201cDo not think,\u201d the wise woman went on, \u201cthat the things you have seen\nin my house are mere empty shows. You do not know, you cannot yet\nthink, how living and true they are.\u2014Now you must go.\u201d\n\nShe led her once more into the great hall, and there showed her the\npicture of her father\u2019s capital, and his palace with the brazen gates.\n\n\u201cThere is your home,\u201d she said. \u201cGo to it.\u201d\n\nThe princess understood, and a flush of shame rose to her forehead. She\nturned to the wise woman and said:\n\n\u201cWill you forgive _all_ my naughtiness, and _all_ the trouble I have\ngiven you?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I had not forgiven you, I would never have taken the trouble to\npunish you. If I had not loved you, do you think I would have carried\nyou away in my cloak?\u201d\n\n\u201cHow could you love such an ugly, ill-tempered, rude, hateful little\nwretch?\u201d\n\n\u201cI saw, through it all, what you were going to be,\u201d said the wise\nwoman, kissing her. \u201cBut remember you have yet only _begun_ to be what\nI saw.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will try to remember,\u201d said the princess, holding her cloak, and\nlooking up in her face.\n\n\u201cGo, then,\u201d said the wise woman.\n\nRosamond turned away on the instant, ran to the picture, stepped over\nthe frame of it, heard a door close gently, gave one glance back, saw\nbehind her the loveliest palace-front of alabaster, gleaming in the\npale-yellow light of an early summer-morning, looked again to the\neastward, saw the faint outline of her father\u2019s city against the sky,\nand ran off to reach it.\n\nIt looked much further off now than when it seemed a picture, but the\nsun was not yet up, and she had the whole of a summer day before her.\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\n\nThe soldiers sent out by the king, had no great difficulty in finding\nAgnes\u2019s father and mother, of whom they demanded if they knew any thing\nof such a young princess as they described. The honest pair told them\nthe truth in every point\u2014that, having lost their own child and found\nanother, they had taken her home, and treated her as their own; that\nshe had indeed called herself a princess, but they had not believed\nher, because she did not look like one; that, even if they had, they\ndid not know how they could have done differently, seeing they were\npoor people, who could not afford to keep any idle person about the\nplace; that they had done their best to teach her good ways, and had\nnot parted with her until her bad temper rendered it impossible to put\nup with her any longer; that, as to the king\u2019s proclamation, they heard\nlittle of the world\u2019s news on their lonely hill, and it had never\nreached them; that if it had, they did not know how either of them\ncould have gone such a distance from home, and left their sheep or\ntheir cottage, one or the other, uncared for.\n\n\u201cYou must learn, then, how both of you can go, and your sheep must take\ncare of your cottage,\u201d said the lawyer, and commanded the soldiers to\nbind them hand and foot.\n\nHeedless of their entreaties to be spared such an indignity, the\nsoldiers obeyed, bore them to a cart, and set out for the king\u2019s\npalace, leaving the cottage door open, the fire burning, the pot of\npotatoes boiling upon it, the sheep scattered over the hill, and the\ndogs not knowing what to do.\n\nHardly were they gone, however, before the wise woman walked up, with\nPrince behind her, peeped into the cottage, locked the door, put the\nkey in her pocket, and then walked away up the hill. In a few minutes\nthere arose a great battle between Prince and the dog which filled his\nformer place\u2014a well-meaning but dull fellow, who could fight better\nthan feed. Prince was not long in showing him that he was meant for his\nmaster, and then, by his efforts, and directions to the other dogs, the\nsheep were soon gathered again, and out of danger from foxes and bad\ndogs. As soon as this was done, the wise woman left them in charge of\nPrince, while she went to the next farm to arrange for the folding of\nthe sheep and the feeding of the dogs.\n\nWhen the soldiers reached the palace, they were ordered to carry their\nprisoners at once into the presence of the king and queen, in the\nthrone room. Their two thrones stood upon a high dais at one end, and\non the floor at the foot of the dais, the soldiers laid their helpless\nprisoners. The queen commanded that they should be unbound, and ordered\nthem to stand up. They obeyed with the dignity of insulted innocence,\nand their bearing offended their foolish majesties.\n\nMeantime the princess, after a long day\u2019s journey, arrived at the\npalace, and walked up to the sentry at the gate.\n\n\u201cStand back,\u201d said the sentry.\n\n\u201cI wish to go in, if you please,\u201d said the princess gently.\n\n\u201cHa! ha! ha!\u201d laughed the sentry, for he was one of those dull people\nwho form their judgment from a person\u2019s clothes, without even looking\nin his eyes; and as the princess happened to be in rags, her request\nwas amusing, and the booby thought himself quite clever for laughing at\nher so thoroughly.\n\n\u201cI am the princess,\u201d Rosamond said quietly.\n\n\u201c_What_ princess?\u201d bellowed the man.\n\n\u201cThe princess Rosamond. Is there another?\u201d she answered and asked.\n\nBut the man was so tickled at the wondrous idea of a princess in rags,\nthat he scarcely heard what she said for laughing. As soon as he\nrecovered a little, he proceeded to chuck the princess under the chin,\nsaying\u2014\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re a pretty girl, my dear, though you ain\u2019t no princess.\u201d\n\nRosamond drew back with dignity.\n\n\u201cYou have spoken three untruths at once,\u201d she said. \u201cI am _not_ pretty,\nand I _am_ a princess, and if I were dear to you, as I ought to be, you\nwould not laugh at me because I am badly dressed, but stand aside, and\nlet me go to my father and mother.\u201d\n\nThe tone of her speech, and the rebuke she gave him, made the man look\nat her; and looking at her, he began to tremble inside his foolish\nbody, and wonder whether he might not have made a mistake. He raised\nhis hand in salute, and said\u2014\n\n\u201cI beg your pardon, miss, but I have express orders to admit no child\nwhatever within the palace gates. They tell me his majesty the king\nsays he is sick of children.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe may well be sick of me!\u201d thought the princess; \u201cbut it can\u2019t mean\nthat he does not want me home again.\u2014I don\u2019t think you can very well\ncall me a child,\u201d she said, looking the sentry full in the face.\n\n\u201cYou ain\u2019t very big, miss,\u201d answered the soldier, \u201cbut so be you say\nyou ain\u2019t a child, I\u2019ll take the risk. The king can only kill me, and a\nman must die once.\u201d\n\nHe opened the gate, stepped aside, and allowed her to pass. Had she\nlost her temper, as every one but the wise woman would have expected of\nher, he certainly would not have done so.\n\nShe ran into the palace, the door of which had been left open by the\nporter when he followed the soldiers and prisoners to the throne-room,\nand bounded up the stairs to look for her father and mother. As she\npassed the door of the throne-room she heard an unusual noise in it,\nand running to the king\u2019s private entrance, over which hung a heavy\ncurtain, she peeped past the edge of it, and saw, to her amazement, the\nshepherd and shepherdess standing like culprits before the king and\nqueen, and the same moment heard the king say\u2014\n\n\u201cPeasants, where is the princess Rosamond?\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly, sire, we do not know,\u201d answered the shepherd.\n\n\u201cYou ought to know,\u201d said the king.\n\n\u201cSire, we could keep her no longer.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou confess, then,\u201d said the king, suppressing the outbreak of the\nwrath that boiled up in him, \u201cthat you turned her out of your house.\u201d\n\nFor the king had been informed by a swift messenger of all that had\npassed long before the arrival of the prisoners.\n\n\u201cWe did, sire; but not only could we keep her no longer, but we knew\nnot that she was the princess.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou ought to have known, the moment you cast your eyes upon her,\u201d said\nthe king. \u201cAny one who does not know a princess the moment he sees her,\nought to have his eyes put out.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed he ought,\u201d said the queen.\n\nTo this they returned no answer, for they had none ready.\n\n\u201cWhy did you not bring her at once to the palace,\u201d pursued the king,\n\u201cwhether you knew her to be a princess or not? My proclamation left\nnothing to your judgment. It said _every child_.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe heard nothing of the proclamation, sire.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou ought to have heard,\u201d said the king. \u201cIt is enough that I make\nproclamations; it is for you to read them. Are they not written in\nletters of gold upon the brazen gates of this palace?\u201d\n\n\u201cA poor shepherd, your majesty\u2014how often must he leave his flock, and\ngo hundreds of miles to look whether there may not be something in\nletters of gold upon the brazen gates? We did not know that your\nmajesty had made a proclamation, or even that the princess was lost.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou ought to have known,\u201d said the king.\n\nThe shepherd held his peace.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said the queen, taking up the word, \u201call that is as nothing,\nwhen I think how you misused the darling.\u201d\n\nThe only ground the queen had for saying thus, was what Agnes had told\nher as to how the princess was dressed; and her condition seemed to the\nqueen so miserable, that she had imagined all sorts of oppression and\ncruelty.\n\nBut this was more than the shepherdess, who had not yet spoken, could\nbear.\n\n\u201cShe would have been dead, and _not_ buried, long ago, madam, if I had\nnot carried her home in my two arms.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy does she say her _two_ arms?\u201d said the king to himself. \u201cHas she\nmore than two? Is there treason in that?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou dressed her in cast-off clothes,\u201d said the queen.\n\n\u201cI dressed her in my own sweet child\u2019s Sunday clothes. And this is what\nI get for it!\u201d cried the shepherdess, bursting into tears.\n\n\u201cAnd what did you do with the clothes you took off her? Sell them?\u201d\n\n\u201cPut them in the fire, madam. They were not fit for the poorest child\nin the mountains. They were so ragged that you could see her skin\nthrough them in twenty different places.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou cruel woman, to torture a mother\u2019s feelings so!\u201d cried the queen,\nand in her turn burst into tears.\n\n\u201cAnd I\u2019m sure,\u201d sobbed the shepherdess, \u201cI took every pains to teach\nher what it was right for her to know. I taught her to tidy the house\nand\u201d\u2014\n\n\u201cTidy the house!\u201d moaned the queen. \u201cMy poor wretched offspring!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd peel the potatoes, and\u201d\u2014\n\n\u201cPeel the potatoes!\u201d cried the queen. \u201cOh, horror!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd black her master\u2019s boots,\u201d said the shepherdess.\n\n\u201cBlack her master\u2019s boots!\u201d shrieked the queen. \u201cOh, my white-handed\nprincess! Oh, my ruined baby!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat I want to know,\u201d said the king, paying no heed to this maternal\nduel, but patting the top of his sceptre as if it had been the hilt of\na sword which he was about to draw, \u201cis, where the princess is now.\u201d\n\nThe shepherd made no answer, for he had nothing to say more than he had\nsaid already.\n\n\u201cYou have murdered her!\u201d shouted the king. \u201cYou shall be tortured till\nyou confess the truth; and then you shall be tortured to death, for you\nare the most abominable wretches in the whole wide world.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho accuses me of crime?\u201d cried the shepherd, indignant.\n\n\u201cI accuse you,\u201d said the king; \u201cbut you shall see, face to face, the\nchief witness to your villany. Officer, bring the girl.\u201d\n\nSilence filled the hall while they waited. The king\u2019s face was swollen\nwith anger. The queen hid hers behind her handkerchief. The shepherd\nand shepherdess bent their eyes on the ground, wondering. It was with\ndifficulty Rosamond could keep her place, but so wise had she already\nbecome that she saw it would be far better to let every thing come out\nbefore she interfered.\n\nAt length the door opened, and in came the officer, followed by Agnes,\nlooking white as death and mean as sin.\n\nThe shepherdess gave a shriek, and darted towards her with arms spread\nwide; the shepherd followed, but not so eagerly.\n\n\u201cMy child! my lost darling! my Agnes!\u201d cried the shepherdess.\n\n\u201cHold them asunder,\u201d shouted the king. \u201cHere is more villany! What!\nhave I a scullery-maid in my house born of such parents? The parents of\nsuch a child must be capable of any thing. Take all three of them to\nthe rack. Stretch them till their joints are torn asunder, and give\nthem no water. Away with them!\u201d\n\nThe soldiers approached to lay hands on them. But, behold! a girl all\nin rags, with such a radiant countenance that it was right lovely to\nsee, darted between, and careless of the royal presence, flung herself\nupon the shepherdess, crying,\u2014\n\n\u201cDo not touch her. She is my good, kind mistress.\u201d\n\nBut the shepherdess could hear or see no one but her Agnes, and pushed\nher away. Then the princess turned, with the tears in her eyes, to the\nshepherd, and threw her arms about his neck and pulled down his head\nand kissed him. And the tall shepherd lifted her to his bosom and kept\nher there, but his eyes were fixed on his Agnes.\n\n\u201cWhat is the meaning of this?\u201d cried the king, starting up from his\nthrone. \u201cHow did that ragged girl get in here? Take her away with the\nrest. She is one of them, too.\u201d\n\nBut the princess made the shepherd set her down, and before any one\ncould interfere she had run up the steps of the dais and then the steps\nof the king\u2019s throne like a squirrel, flung herself upon the king, and\nbegun to smother him with kisses.\n\nAll stood astonished, except the three peasants, who did not even see\nwhat took place. The shepherdess kept calling to her Agnes, but she was\nso ashamed that she did not dare even lift her eyes to meet her\nmother\u2019s, and the shepherd kept gazing on her in silence. As for the\nking, he was so breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he was\ntoo feeble to fling the ragged child from him, as he tried to do. But\nshe left him, and running down the steps of the one throne and up those\nof the other, began kissing the queen next. But the queen cried out,\u2014\n\n\u201cGet away, you great rude child!\u2014Will nobody take her to the rack?\u201d\n\nThen the princess, hardly knowing what she did for joy that she had\ncome in time, ran down the steps of the throne and the dais, and\nplacing herself between the shepherd and shepherdess, took a hand of\neach, and stood looking at the king and queen.\n\nTheir faces began to change. At last they began to know her. But she\nwas so altered\u2014so lovelily altered, that it was no wonder they should\nnot have known her at the first glance; but it was the fault of the\npride and anger and injustice with which their hearts were filled, that\nthey did not know her at the second.\n\nThe king gazed and the queen gazed, both half risen from their thrones,\nand looking as if about to tumble down upon her, if only they could be\nright sure that the ragged girl was their own child. A mistake would be\nsuch a dreadful thing!\n\n\u201cMy darling!\u201d at last shrieked the mother, a little doubtfully.\n\n\u201cMy pet of pets?\u201d cried the father, with an interrogative twist of\ntone.\n\nAnother moment, and they were half way down the steps of the dais.\n\n\u201cStop!\u201d said a voice of command from somewhere in the hall, and, king\nand queen as they were, they stopped at once half way, then drew\nthemselves up, stared, and began to grow angry again, but durst not go\nfarther.\n\nThe wise woman was coming slowly up through the crowd that filled the\nhall. Every one made way for her. She came straight on until she stood\nin front of the king and queen.\n\n\u201cMiserable man and woman!\u201d she said, in words they alone could hear, \u201cI\ntook your daughter away when she was worthy of such parents; I bring\nher back, and they are unworthy of her. That you did not know her when\nshe came to you is a small wonder, for you have been blind in soul all\nyour lives: now be blind in body until your better eyes are unsealed.\u201d\n\nShe threw her cloak open. It fell to the ground, and the radiance that\nflashed from her robe of snowy whiteness, from her face of awful\nbeauty, and from her eyes that shone like pools of sunlight, smote them\nblind.\n\nRosamond saw them give a great start, shudder, waver to and fro, then\nsit down on the steps of the dais; and she knew they were punished, but\nknew not how. She rushed up to them, and catching a hand of each said\u2014\n\n\u201cFather, dear father! mother dear! I will ask the wise woman to forgive\nyou.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, I am blind! I am blind!\u201d they cried together. \u201cDark as night!\nStone blind!\u201d\n\nRosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and kneeling at her feet,\ncried, \u201cOh, my lovely wise woman! do let them see. Do open their eyes,\ndear, good, wise woman.\u201d\n\nThe wise woman bent down to her, and said, so that none else could\nhear, \u201cI will one day. Meanwhile you must be their servant, as I have\nbeen yours. Bring them to me, and I will make them welcome.\u201d\n\nRosamond rose, went up the steps again to her father and mother, where\nthey sat like statues with closed eyes, half-way from the top of the\ndais where stood their empty thrones, seated herself between them, took\na hand of each, and was still.\n\nAll this time very few in the room saw the wise woman. The moment she\nthrew off her cloak she vanished from the sight of almost all who were\npresent. The woman who swept and dusted the hall and brushed the\nthrones, saw her, and the shepherd had a glimmering vision of her; but\nno one else that I know of caught a glimpse of her. The shepherdess did\nnot see her. Nor did Agnes, but she felt her presence upon her like the\nbeat of a furnace seven times heated.\n\nAs soon as Rosamond had taken her place between her father and mother,\nthe wise woman lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again\naround her. Then everybody saw her, and Agnes felt as if a soft dewy\ncloud had come between her and the torrid rays of a vertical sun. The\nwise woman turned to the shepherd and shepherdess.\n\n\u201cFor you,\u201d she said, \u201cyou are sufficiently punished by the work of your\nown hands. Instead of making your daughter obey you, you left her to be\na slave to herself; you coaxed when you ought to have compelled; you\npraised when you ought to have been silent; you fondled when you ought\nto have punished; you threatened when you ought to have inflicted\u2014and\nthere she stands, the full-grown result of your foolishness! She is\nyour crime and your punishment. Take her home with you, and live hour\nafter hour with the pale-hearted disgrace you call your daughter. What\nshe is, the worm at her heart has begun to teach her. When life is no\nlonger endurable, come to me.\n\n\u201cMadam,\u201d said the shepherd, \u201cmay I not go with you now?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou shall,\u201d said the wise woman.\n\n\u201cHusband! husband!\u201d cried the shepherdess, \u201chow are we two to get home\nwithout you?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will see to that,\u201d said the wise woman. \u201cBut little of home you will\nfind it until you have come to me. The king carried you hither, and he\nshall carry you back. But your husband shall not go with you. He cannot\nnow if he would.\u201d\n\nThe shepherdess looked and saw that the shepherd stood in a deep sleep.\nShe went to him and sought to rouse him, but neither tongue nor hands\nwere of the slightest avail.\n\nThe wise woman turned to Rosamond.\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d she said, \u201cI shall never be far from you. Come to me when\nyou will. Bring them to me.\u201d\n\nRosamond smiled and kissed her hand, but kept her place by her parents.\nThey also were now in a deep sleep like the shepherd.\n\nThe wise woman took the shepherd by the hand, and led him away.\n\nAnd that is all my double story. How double it is, if you care to know,\nyou must find out. If you think it is not finished\u2014I never knew a story\nthat was. I could tell you a great deal more concerning them all, but I\nhave already told more than is good for those who read but with their\nforeheads, and enough for those whom it has made look a little solemn,\nand sigh as they close the book.","title":"A Double Story","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":34159}