CHAPTER XIV.

A DOUBLE STORY

I.

There was a certain country where things used to go rather oddly. For

instance, you could never tell whether it was going to rain or hail, or

whether or not the milk was going to turn sour. It was impossible to

say whether the next baby would be a boy, or a girl, or even, after he

was a week old, whether he would wake sweet-tempered or cross.

In strict accordance with the peculiar nature of this country of

uncertainties, it came to pass one day, that in the midst of a shower

of rain that might well be called golden, seeing the sun, shining as it

fell, turned all its drops into molten topazes, and every drop was good

for a grain of golden corn, or a yellow cowslip, or a buttercup, or a

dandelion at least;—while this splendid rain was falling, I say, with a

musical patter upon the great leaves of the horse-chestnuts, which hung

like Vandyke collars about the necks of the creamy, red-spotted

blossoms, and on the leaves of the sycamores, looking as if they had

blood in their veins, and on a multitude of flowers, of which some

stood up and boldly held out their cups to catch their share, while

others cowered down, laughing, under the soft patting blows of the

heavy warm drops;—while this lovely rain was washing all the air clean

from the motes, and the bad odors, and the poison-seeds that had

escaped from their prisons during the long drought;—while it fell,

splashing and sparkling, with a hum, and a rush, and a soft

clashing—but stop! I am stealing, I find, and not that only, but with

clumsy hands spoiling what I steal:—

“O Rain! with your dull twofold sound,

The clash hard by, and the murmur all round:”

—there! take it, Mr. Coleridge;—while, as I was saying, the lovely

little rivers whose fountains are the clouds, and which cut their own

channels through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing against their

banks as they hurry down and down, until at length they are pulled up

on a sudden, with a musical plash, in the very heart of an odorous

flower, that first gasps and then sighs up a blissful scent, or on the

bald head of a stone that never says, Thank you;—while the very sheep

felt it blessing them, though it could never reach their skins through

the depth of their long wool, and the veriest hedgehog—I mean the one

with the longest spikes—came and spiked himself out to impale as many

of the drops as he could;—while the rain was thus falling, and the

leaves, and the flowers, and the sheep, and the cattle, and the

hedgehog, were all busily receiving the golden rain, something

happened. It was not a great battle, nor an earthquake, nor a

coronation, but something more important than all those put together.

_A baby-girl was born;_ and her father was a king; and her mother was a

queen; and her uncles and aunts were princes and princesses; and her

first-cousins were dukes and duchesses; and not one of her

second-cousins was less than a marquis or marchioness, or of their

third-cousins less than an earl or countess: and below a countess they

did not care to count. So the little girl was Somebody; and yet for all

that, strange to say, the first thing she did was to cry. I told you it

was a strange country.

As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that

she was Somebody; and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it

that she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it

for a fundamental, innate, primary, first-born, self-evident,

necessary, and incontrovertible idea and principle that _she was

Somebody_. And far be it from me to deny it. I will even go so far as

to assert that in this odd country there was a huge number of

Somebodies. Indeed, it was one of its oddities that every boy and girl

in it, was rather too ready to think he or she was Somebody; and the

worst of it was that the princess never thought of there being more

than one Somebody—and that was herself.

Far away to the north in the same country, on the side of a bleak hill,

where a horse-chestnut or a sycamore was never seen, where were no

meadows rich with buttercups, only steep, rough, breezy slopes, covered

with dry prickly furze and its flowers of red gold, or moister, softer

broom with its flowers of yellow gold, and great sweeps of purple

heather, mixed with bilberries, and crowberries, and cranberries—no, I

am all wrong: there was nothing out yet but a few furze-blossoms; the

rest were all waiting behind their doors till they were called; and no

full, slow-gliding river with meadow-sweet along its oozy banks, only a

little brook here and there, that dashed past without a moment to say,

“How do you do?”—there (would you believe it?) while the same cloud

that was dropping down golden rain all about the queen’s new baby was

dashing huge fierce handfuls of hail upon the hills, with such force

that they flew spinning off the rocks and stones, went burrowing in the

sheep’s wool, stung the cheeks and chin of the shepherd with their

sharp spiteful little blows, and made his dog wink and whine as they

bounded off his hard wise head, and long sagacious nose; only, when

they dropped plump down the chimney, and fell hissing in the little

fire, they caught it then, for the clever little fire soon sent them up

the chimney again, a good deal swollen, and harmless enough for a

while, there (what do you think?) among the hailstones, and the

heather, and the cold mountain air, another little girl was born, whom

the shepherd her father, and the shepherdess her mother, and a good

many of her kindred too, thought Somebody. She had not an uncle or an

aunt that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid, not a cousin, that was

less than a farm-laborer, not a second-cousin that was less than a

grocer, and they did not count farther. And yet (would you believe it?)

she too cried the very first thing. It _was_ an odd country! And, what

is still more surprising, the shepherd and shepherdess and the

dairymaids and the laborers were not a bit wiser than the king and the

queen and the dukes and the marquises and the earls; for they too, one

and all, so constantly taught the little woman that she was Somebody,

that she also forgot that there were a great many more Somebodies

besides herself in the world.

It was, indeed, a peculiar country, very different from ours—so

different, that my reader must not be too much surprised when I add the

amazing fact, that most of its inhabitants, instead of enjoying the

things they had, were always wanting the things they had not, often

even the things it was least likely they ever could have. The grown men

and women being like this, there is no reason to be further astonished

that the Princess Rosamond—the name her parents gave her because it

means _Rose of the World_—should grow up like them, wanting every thing

she could and every thing she couldn’t have. The things she could have

were a great many too many, for her foolish parents always gave her

what they could; but still there remained a few things they couldn’t

give her, for they were only a common king and queen. They could and

did give her a lighted candle when she cried for it, and managed by

much care that she should not burn her fingers or set her frock on

fire; but when she cried for the moon, that they could not give her.

They did the worst thing possible, instead, however; for they pretended

to do what they could not. They got her a thin disc of brilliantly

polished silver, as near the size of the moon as they could agree upon;

and, for a time she was delighted.

But, unfortunately, one evening she made the discovery that her moon

was a little peculiar, inasmuch as she could not shine in the dark. Her

nurse happened to snuff out the candles as she was playing with it; and

instantly came a shriek of rage, for her moon had vanished. Presently,

through the opening of the curtains, she caught sight of the real moon,

far away in the sky, and shining quite calmly, as if she had been there

all the time; and her rage increased to such a degree that if it had

not passed off in a fit, I do not know what might have come of it.

As she grew up it was still the same, with this difference, that not

only must she have every thing, but she got tired of every thing almost

as soon as she had it. There was an accumulation of things in her

nursery and schoolroom and bedroom that was perfectly appalling. Her

mother’s wardrobes were almost useless to her, so packed were they with

things of which she never took any notice. When she was five years old,

they gave her a splendid gold repeater, so close set with diamonds and

rubies, that the back was just one crust of gems. In one of her little

tempers, as they called her hideously ugly rages, she dashed it against

the back of the chimney, after which it never gave a single tick; and

some of the diamonds went to the ash-pit. As she grew older still, she

became fond of animals, not in a way that brought them much pleasure,

or herself much satisfaction. When angry, she would beat them, and try

to pull them to pieces, and as soon as she became a little used to

them, would neglect them altogether. Then, if they could, they would

run away, and she was furious. Some white mice, which she had ceased

feeding altogether, did so; and soon the palace was swarming with white

mice. Their red eyes might be seen glowing, and their white skins

gleaming, in every dark corner; but when it came to the king’s finding

a nest of them in his second-best crown, he was angry and ordered them

to be drowned. The princess heard of it, however, and raised such a

clamor, that there they were left until they should run away of

themselves; and the poor king had to wear his best crown every day till

then. Nothing that was the princess’s property, whether she cared for

it or not, was to be meddled with.

Of course, as she grew, she grew worse; for she never tried to grow

better. She became more and more peevish and fretful every

day—dissatisfied not only with what she had, but with all that was

around her, and constantly wishing things in general to be different.

She found fault with every thing and everybody, and all that happened,

and grew more and more disagreeable to every one who had to do with

her. At last, when she had nearly killed her nurse, and had all but

succeeded in hanging herself, and was miserable from morning to night,

her parents thought it time to do something.

A long way from the palace, in the heart of a deep wood of pine-trees,

lived a wise woman. In some countries she would have been called a

witch; but that would have been a mistake, for she never did any thing

wicked, and had more power than any witch could have. As her fame was

spread through all the country, the king heard of her; and, thinking

she might perhaps be able to suggest something, sent for her. In the

dead of the night, lest the princess should know it, the king’s

messenger brought into the palace a tall woman, muffled from head to

foot in a cloak of black cloth. In the presence of both their

Majesties, the king, to do her honor, requested her to sit; but she

declined, and stood waiting to hear what they had to say. Nor had she

to wait long, for almost instantly they began to tell her the dreadful

trouble they were in with their only child; first the king talking,

then the queen interposing with some yet more dreadful fact, and at

times both letting out a torrent of words together, so anxious were

they to show the wise woman that their perplexity was real, and their

daughter a very terrible one. For a long while there appeared no sign

of approaching pause. But the wise woman stood patiently folded in her

black cloak, and listened without word or motion. At length silence

fell; for they had talked themselves tired, and could not think of any

thing more to add to the list of their child’s enormities.

After a minute, the wise woman unfolded her arms; and her cloak

dropping open in front, disclosed a garment made of a strange stuff,

which an old poet who knew her well has thus described:—

“All lilly white, withoutten spot or pride,

That seemd like silke and silver woven neare;

But neither silke nor silver therein did appeare.”

“How very badly you have treated her!” said the wise woman. “Poor

child!”

“Treated her badly?” gasped the king.

“She is a very wicked child,” said the queen; and both glared with

indignation.

“Yes, indeed!” returned the wise woman. “She is very naughty indeed,

and that she must be made to feel; but it is half your fault too.”

“What!” stammered the king. “Haven’t we given her every mortal thing

she wanted?”

“Surely,” said the wise woman: “what else could have all but killed

her? You should have given her a few things of the other sort. But you

are far too dull to understand me.”

“You are very polite,” remarked the king, with royal sarcasm on his

thin, straight lips.

The wise woman made no answer beyond a deep sigh; and the king and

queen sat silent also in their anger, glaring at the wise woman. The

silence lasted again for a minute, and then the wise woman folded her

cloak around her, and her shining garment vanished like the moon when a

great cloud comes over her. Yet another minute passed and the silence

endured, for the smouldering wrath of the king and queen choked the

channels of their speech. Then the wise woman turned her back on them,

and so stood. At this, the rage of the king broke forth; and he cried

to the queen, stammering in his fierceness,—

“How should such an old hag as that teach Rosamond good manners? She

knows nothing of them herself! Look how she stands!—actually with her

back to us.”

At the word the wise woman walked from the room. The great folding

doors fell to behind her; and the same moment the king and queen were

quarrelling like apes as to which of them was to blame for her

departure. Before their altercation was over, for it lasted till the

early morning, in rushed Rosamond, clutching in her hand a poor little

white rabbit, of which she was very fond, and from which, only because

it would not come to her when she called it, she was pulling handfuls

of fur in the attempt to tear the squealing, pink-eared, red-eyed thing

to pieces.

“Rosa, Rosa_mond!_” cried the queen; whereupon Rosamond threw the

rabbit in her mother’s face. The king started up in a fury, and ran to

seize her. She darted shrieking from the room. The king rushed after

her; but, to his amazement, she was nowhere to be seen: the huge hall

was empty.—No: just outside the door, close to the threshold, with her

back to it, sat the figure of the wise woman, muffled in her dark

cloak, with her head bowed over her knees. As the king stood looking at

her, she rose slowly, crossed the hall, and walked away down the marble

staircase. The king called to her; but she never turned her head, or

gave the least sign that she heard him. So quietly did she pass down

the wide marble stair, that the king was all but persuaded he had seen

only a shadow gliding across the white steps.

For the princess, she was nowhere to be found. The queen went into

hysterics; and the rabbit ran away. The king sent out messengers in

every direction, but in vain.

In a short time the palace was quiet—as quiet as it used to be before

the princess was born. The king and queen cried a little now and then,

for the hearts of parents were in that country strangely fashioned; and

yet I am afraid the first movement of those very hearts would have been

a jump of terror if the ears above them had heard the voice of Rosamond

in one of the corridors. As for the rest of the household, they could

not have made up a single tear amongst them. They thought, whatever it

might be for the princess, it was, for every one else, the best thing

that could have happened; and as to what had become of her, if their

heads were puzzled, their hearts took no interest in the question. The

lord-chancellor alone had an idea about it, but he was far too wise to

utter it.

II.

The fact, as is plain, was, that the princess had disappeared in the

folds of the wise woman’s cloak. When she rushed from the room, the

wise woman caught her to her bosom and flung the black garment around

her. The princess struggled wildly, for she was in fierce terror, and

screamed as loud as choking fright would permit her; but her father,

standing in the door, and looking down upon the wise woman, saw never a

movement of the cloak, so tight was she held by her captor. He was

indeed aware of a most angry crying, which reminded him of his

daughter; but it sounded to him so far away, that he took it for the

passion of some child in the street, outside the palace-gates. Hence,

unchallenged, the wise woman carried the princess down the marble

stairs, out at the palace-door, down a great flight of steps outside,

across a paved court, through the brazen gates, along half-roused

streets where people were opening their shops, through the huge gates

of the city, and out into the wide road, vanishing northwards; the

princess struggling and screaming all the time, and the wise woman

holding her tight. When at length she was too tired to struggle or

scream any more, the wise woman unfolded her cloak, and set her down;

and the princess saw the light and opened her swollen eyelids. There

was nothing in sight that she had ever seen before. City and palace had

disappeared. They were upon a wide road going straight on, with a ditch

on each side of it, that behind them widened into the great moat

surrounding the city. She cast up a terrified look into the wise

woman’s face, that gazed down upon her gravely and kindly. Now the

princess did not in the least understand kindness. She always took it

for a sign either of partiality or fear. So when the wise woman looked

kindly upon her, she rushed at her, butting with her head like a ram:

but the folds of the cloak had closed around the wise woman; and, when

the princess ran against it, she found it hard as the cloak of a bronze

statue, and fell back upon the road with a great bruise on her head.

The wise woman lifted her again, and put her once more under the cloak,

where she fell asleep, and where she awoke again only to find that she

was still being carried on and on.

When at length the wise woman again stopped and set her down, she saw

around her a bright moonlit night, on a wide heath, solitary and

houseless. Here she felt more frightened than before; nor was her

terror assuaged when, looking up, she saw a stern, immovable

countenance, with cold eyes fixedly regarding her. All she knew of the

world being derived from nursery-tales, she concluded that the wise

woman was an ogress, carrying her home to eat her.

I have already said that the princess was, at this time of her life,

such a low-minded creature, that severity had greater influence over

her than kindness. She understood terror better far than tenderness.

When the wise woman looked at her thus, she fell on her knees, and held

up her hands to her, crying,—

“Oh, don’t eat me! don’t eat me!”

Now this being the best _she_ could do, it was a sign she was a low

creature. Think of it—to kick at kindness, and kneel from terror. But

the sternness on the face of the wise woman came from the same heart

and the same feeling as the kindness that had shone from it before. The

only thing that could save the princess from her hatefulness, was that

she should be made to mind somebody else than her own miserable

Somebody.

Without saying a word, the wise woman reached down her hand, took one

of Rosamond’s, and, lifting her to her feet, led her along through the

moonlight. Every now and then a gush of obstinacy would well up in the

heart of the princess, and she would give a great ill-tempered tug, and

pull her hand away; but then the wise woman would gaze down upon her

with such a look, that she instantly sought again the hand she had

rejected, in pure terror lest she should be eaten upon the spot. And so

they would walk on again; and when the wind blew the folds of the cloak

against the princess, she found them soft as her mother’s camel-hair

shawl.

After a little while the wise woman began to sing to her, and the

princess could not help listening; for the soft wind amongst the low

dry bushes of the heath, the rustle of their own steps, and the

trailing of the wise woman’s cloak, were the only sounds beside.

And this is the song she sang:—

Out in the cold,

With a thin-worn fold

Of withered gold

Around her rolled,

Hangs in the air the weary moon.

She is old, old, old;

And her bones all cold,

And her tales all told,

And her things all sold,

And she has no breath to croon.

Like a castaway clout,

She is quite shut out!

She might call and shout,

But no one about

Would ever call back, “Who’s there?”

There is never a hut,

Not a door to shut,

Not a footpath or rut,

Long road or short cut,

Leading to anywhere!

She is all alone

Like a dog-picked bone,

The poor old crone!

She fain would groan,

But she cannot find the breath.

She once had a fire;

But she built it no higher,

And only sat nigher

Till she saw it expire;

And now she is cold as death.

She never will smile

All the lonesome while.

Oh the mile after mile,

And never a stile!

And never a tree or a stone!

She has not a tear:

Afar and anear

It is all so drear,

But she does not care,

Her heart is as dry as a bone.

None to come near her!

No one to cheer her!

No one to jeer her!

No one to hear her!

Not a thing to lift and hold!

She is always awake,

But her heart will not break:

She can only quake,

Shiver, and shake:

The old woman is very cold.

As strange as the song, was the crooning wailing tune that the wise

woman sung. At the first note almost, you would have thought she wanted

to frighten the princess; and so indeed she did. For when people _will_

be naughty, they have to be frightened, and they are not expected to

like it. The princess grew angry, pulled her hand away, and cried,—

“_You_ are the ugly old woman. I hate you!”

Therewith she stood still, expecting the wise woman to stop also,

perhaps coax her to go on: if she did, she was determined not to move a

step. But the wise woman never even looked about: she kept walking on

steadily, the same pace as before. Little Obstinate thought for certain

she would turn; for she regarded herself as much too precious to be

left behind. But on and on the wise woman went, until she had vanished

away in the dim moonlight. Then all at once the princess perceived that

she was left alone with the moon, looking down on her from the height

of her loneliness. She was horribly frightened, and began to run after

the wise woman, calling aloud. But the song she had just heard came

back to the sound of her own running feet,—

All all alone,

Like a dog-picked bone!

and again,—

She might call and shout,

And no one about

Would ever call back, “Who’s there?”

and she screamed as she ran. How she wished she knew the old woman’s

name, that she might call it after her through the moonlight!

But the wise woman had, in truth, heard the first sound of her running

feet, and stopped and turned, waiting. What with running and crying,

however, and a fall or two as she ran, the princess never saw her until

she fell right into her arms—and the same moment into a fresh rage; for

as soon as any trouble was over the princess was always ready to begin

another. The wise woman therefore pushed her away, and walked on; while

the princess ran scolding and storming after her. She had to run till,

from very fatigue, her rudeness ceased. Her heart gave way; she burst

into tears, and ran on silently weeping.

A minute more and the wise woman stooped, and lifting her in her arms,

folded her cloak around her. Instantly she fell asleep, and slept as

soft and as soundly as if she had been in her own bed. She slept till

the moon went down; she slept till the sun rose up; she slept till he

climbed the topmost sky; she slept till he went down again, and the

poor old moon came peaking and peering out once more: and all that time

the wise woman went walking on and on very fast. And now they had

reached a spot where a few fir-trees came to meet them through the

moonlight.

At the same time the princess awaked, and popping her head out between

the folds of the wise woman’s cloak—a very ugly little owlet she

looked—saw that they were entering the wood. Now there is something

awful about every wood, especially in the moonlight; and perhaps a

fir-wood is more awful than other woods. For one thing, it lets a

little more light through, rendering the darkness a little more

visible, as it were; and then the trees go stretching away up towards

the moon, and look as if they cared nothing about the creatures below

them—not like the broad trees with soft wide leaves that, in the

darkness even, look sheltering. So the princess is not to be blamed

that she was very much frightened. She is hardly to be blamed either

that, assured the wise woman was an ogress carrying her to her castle

to eat her up, she began again to kick and scream violently, as those

of my readers who are of the same sort as herself will consider the

right and natural thing to do. The wrong in her was this—that she had

led such a bad life, that she did not know a good woman when she saw

her; took her for one like herself, even after she had slept in her

arms.

Immediately the wise woman set her down, and, walking on, within a few

paces vanished among the trees. Then the cries of the princess rent the

air, but the fir-trees never heeded her; not one of their hard little

needles gave a single shiver for all the noise she made. But there were

creatures in the forest who were soon quite as much interested in her

cries as the fir-trees were indifferent to them. They began to hearken

and howl and snuff about, and run hither and thither, and grin with

their white teeth, and light up the green lamps in their eyes. In a

minute or two a whole army of wolves and hyenas were rushing from all

quarters through the pillar like stems of the fir-trees, to the place

where she stood calling them, without knowing it. The noise she made

herself, however, prevented her from hearing either their howls or the

soft pattering of their many trampling feet as they bounded over the

fallen fir needles and cones.

One huge old wolf had outsped the rest—not that he could run faster,

but that from experience he could more exactly judge whence the cries

came, and as he shot through the wood, she caught sight at last of his

lamping eyes coming swiftly nearer and nearer. Terror silenced her. She

stood with her mouth open, as if she were going to eat the wolf, but

she had no breath to scream with, and her tongue curled up in her mouth

like a withered and frozen leaf. She could do nothing but stare at the

coming monster. And now he was taking a few shorter bounds, measuring

the distance for the one final leap that should bring him upon her,

when out stepped the wise woman from behind the very tree by which she

had set the princess down, caught the wolf by the throat half-way in

his last spring, shook him once, and threw him from her dead. Then she

turned towards the princess, who flung herself into her arms, and was

instantly lapped in the folds of her cloak.

But now the huge army of wolves and hyenas had rushed like a sea around

them, whose waves leaped with hoarse roar and hollow yell up against

the wise woman. But she, like a strong stately vessel, moved unhurt

through the midst of them. Ever as they leaped against her cloak, they

dropped and slunk away back through the crowd. Others ever succeeded,

and ever in their turn fell, and drew back confounded. For some time

she walked on attended and assailed on all sides by the howling pack.

Suddenly they turned and swept away, vanishing in the depths of the

forest. She neither slackened nor hastened her step, but went walking

on as before.

In a little while she unfolded her cloak, and let the princess look

out. The firs had ceased; and they were on a lofty height of moorland,

stony and bare and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants

here and there. About the heath, on every side, lay the forest, looking

in the moonlight like a cloud; and above the forest, like the shaven

crown of a monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking.

Presently, a little way in front of them, the princess espied a

whitewashed cottage, gleaming in the moon. As they came nearer, she saw

that the roof was covered with thatch, over which the moss had grown

green. It was a very simple, humble place, not in the least terrible to

look at, and yet, as soon as she saw it, her fear again awoke, and

always, as soon as her fear awoke, the trust of the princess fell into

a dead sleep. Foolish and useless as she might by this time have known

it, she once more began kicking and screaming, whereupon, yet once

more, the wise woman set her down on the heath, a few yards from the

back of the cottage, and saying only, “No one ever gets into my house

who does not knock at the door, and ask to come in,” disappeared round

the corner of the cottage, leaving the princess alone with the moon—two

white faces in the cone of the night.

III.

The moon stared at the princess, and the princess stared at the moon;

but the moon had the best of it, and the princess began to cry. And now

the question was between the moon and the cottage. The princess thought

she knew the worst of the moon, and she knew nothing at all about the

cottage, therefore she would stay with the moon. Strange, was it not,

that she should have been so long with the wise woman, and yet know

_nothing_ about that cottage? As for the moon, she did not by any means

know the worst of her, or even, that, if she were to fall asleep where

she could find her, the old witch would certainly do her best to twist

her face.

But she had scarcely sat a moment longer before she was assailed by all

sorts of fresh fears. First of all, the soft wind blowing gently

through the dry stalks of the heather and its thousands of little bells

raised a sweet rustling, which the princess took for the hissing of

serpents, for you know she had been naughty for so long that she could

not in a great many things tell the good from the bad. Then nobody

could deny that there, all round about the heath, like a ring of

darkness, lay the gloomy fir-wood, and the princess knew what it was

full of, and every now and then she thought she heard the howling of

its wolves and hyenas. And who could tell but some of them might break

from their covert and sweep like a shadow across the heath? Indeed, it

was not once nor twice that for a moment she was fully persuaded she

saw a great beast coming leaping and bounding through the moonlight to

have her all to himself. She did not know that not a single evil

creature dared set foot on that heath, or that, if one should do so, it

would that instant wither up and cease. If an army of them had rushed

to invade it, it would have melted away on the edge of it, and ceased

like a dying wave.—She even imagined that the moon was slowly coming

nearer and nearer down the sky to take her and freeze her to death in

her arms. The wise woman, too, she felt sure, although her cottage

looked asleep, was watching her at some little window. In this,

however, she would have been quite right, if she had only imagined

enough—namely, that the wise woman was watching _over_ her from the

little window. But after all, somehow, the thought of the wise woman

was less frightful than that of any of her other terrors, and at length

she began to wonder whether it might not turn out that she was no

ogress, but only a rude, ill-bred, tyrannical, yet on the whole not

altogether ill-meaning person. Hardly had the possibility arisen in her

mind, before she was on her feet: if the woman was any thing short of

an ogress, her cottage must be better than that horrible loneliness,

with nothing in all the world but a stare; and even an ogress had at

least the shape and look of a human being.

She darted round the end of the cottage to find the front. But, to her

surprise, she came only to another back, for no door was to be seen.

She tried the farther end, but still no door. She must have passed it

as she ran—but no—neither in gable nor in side was any to be found.

A cottage without a door!—she rushed at it in a rage and kicked at the

wall with her feet. But the wall was hard as iron, and hurt her sadly

through her gay silken slippers. She threw herself on the heath, which

came up to the walls of the cottage on every side, and roared and

screamed with rage. Suddenly, however, she remembered how her screaming

had brought the horde of wolves and hyenas about her in the forest,

and, ceasing at once, lay still, gazing yet again at the moon. And then

came the thought of her parents in the palace at home. In her mind’s

eye she saw her mother sitting at her embroidery with the tears

dropping upon it, and her father staring into the fire as if he were

looking for her in its glowing caverns. It is true that if they had

both been in tears by her side because of her naughtiness, she would

not have cared a straw; but now her own forlorn condition somehow

helped her to understand their grief at having lost her, and not only a

great longing to be back in her comfortable home, but a feeble flutter

of genuine love for her parents awoke in her heart as well, and she

burst into real tears—soft, mournful tears—very different from those of

rage and disappointment to which she was so much used. And another very

remarkable thing was that the moment she began to love her father and

mother, she began to wish to see the wise woman again. The idea of her

being an ogress vanished utterly, and she thought of her only as one to

take her in from the moon, and the loneliness, and the terrors of the

forest-haunted heath, and hide her in a cottage with not even a door

for the horrid wolves to howl against.

But the old woman—as the princess called her, not knowing that her real

name was the Wise Woman—had told her that she must knock at the door:

how was she to do that when there was no door? But again she bethought

herself—that, if she could not do all she was told, she could, at

least, do a part of it: if she could not knock at the door, she could

at least knock—say on the wall, for there was nothing else to knock

upon—and perhaps the old woman would hear her, and lift her in by some

window. Thereupon, she rose at once to her feet, and picking up a

stone, began to knock on the wall with it. A loud noise was the result,

and she found she was knocking on the very door itself. For a moment

she feared the old woman would be offended, but the next, there came a

voice, saying,

“Who is there?”

The princess answered,

“Please, old woman, I did not mean to knock so loud.”

To this there came no reply.

Then the princess knocked again, this time with her knuckles, and the

voice came again, saying,

“Who is there?”

And the princess answered,

“Rosamond.”

Then a second time there was silence. But the princess soon ventured to

knock a third time.

“What do you want?” said the voice.

“Oh, please, let me in!” said the princess.

“The moon will keep staring at me; and I hear the wolves in the wood.”

Then the door opened, and the princess entered. She looked all around,

but saw nothing of the wise woman.

It was a single bare little room, with a white deal table, and a few

old wooden chairs, a fire of fir-wood on the hearth, the smoke of which

smelt sweet, and a patch of thick-growing heath in one corner. Poor as

it was, compared to the grand place Rosamond had left, she felt no

little satisfaction as she shut the door, and looked around her. And

what with the sufferings and terrors she had left outside, the new kind

of tears she had shed, the love she had begun to feel for her parents,

and the trust she had begun to place in the wise woman, it seemed to

her as if her soul had grown larger of a sudden, and she had left the

days of her childishness and naughtiness far behind her. People are so

ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is

changed! Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine day, will be

ill-tempered when it rains: their selves are just the same both days;

only in the one case, the fine weather has got into them, in the other

the rainy. Rosamond, as she sat warming herself by the glow of the

peat-fire, turning over in her mind all that had passed, and feeling

how pleasant the change in her feelings was, began by degrees to think

how very good she had grown, and how very good she was to have grown

good, and how extremely good she must always have been that she was

able to grow so very good as she now felt she had grown; and she became

so absorbed in her self-admiration as never to notice either that the

fire was dying, or that a heap of fir-cones lay in a corner near it.

Suddenly, a great wind came roaring down the chimney, and scattered the

ashes about the floor; a tremendous rain followed, and fell hissing on

the embers; the moon was swallowed up, and there was darkness all about

her. Then a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder, so

terrified the princess, that she cried aloud for the old woman, but

there came no answer to her cry.

Then in her terror the princess grew angry, and saying to herself, “She

must be somewhere in the place, else who was there to open the door to

me?” began to shout and yell, and call the wise woman all the bad names

she had been in the habit of throwing at her nurses. But there came not

a single sound in reply.

Strange to say, the princess never thought of telling herself now how

naughty she was, though that would surely have been reasonable. On the

contrary, she thought she had a perfect right to be angry, for was she

not most desperately ill used—and a princess too? But the wind howled

on, and the rain kept pouring down the chimney, and every now and then

the lightning burst out, and the thunder rushed after it, as if the

great lumbering sound could ever think to catch up with the swift

light!

At length the princess had again grown so angry, frightened, and

miserable, all together, that she jumped up and hurried about the

cottage with outstretched arms, trying to find the wise woman. But

being in a bad temper always makes people stupid, and presently she

struck her forehead such a blow against something—she thought herself

it felt like the old woman’s cloak—that she fell back—not on the floor,

though, but on the patch of heather, which felt as soft and pleasant as

any bed in the palace. There, worn out with weeping and rage, she soon

fell fast asleep.

She dreamed that she was the old cold woman up in the sky, with no home

and no friends, and no nothing at all, not even a pocket; wandering,

wandering forever, over a desert of blue sand, never to get to

anywhere, and never to lie down or die. It was no use stopping to look

about her, for what had she to do but forever look about her as she

went on and on and on—never seeing any thing, and never expecting to

see any thing! The only shadow of a hope she had was, that she might by

slow degrees grow thinner and thinner, until at last she wore away to

nothing at all; only alas! she could not detect the least sign that she

had yet begun to grow thinner. The hopelessness grew at length so

unendurable that she woke with a start. Seeing the face of the wise

woman bending over her, she threw her arms around her neck and held up

her mouth to be kissed. And the kiss of the wise woman was like the

rose-gardens of Damascus.

IV.

The wise woman lifted her tenderly, and washed and dressed her far more

carefully than even her nurse. Then she set her down by the fire, and

prepared her breakfast. The princess was very hungry, and the bread and

milk as good as it could be, so that she thought she had never in her

life eaten any thing nicer. Nevertheless, as soon as she began to have

enough, she said to herself,—

“Ha! I see how it is! The old woman wants to fatten me! That is why she

gives me such nice creamy milk. She doesn’t kill me now because she’s

going to kill me then! She _is_ an ogress, after all!”

Thereupon she laid down her spoon, and would not eat another

mouthful—only followed the basin with longing looks, as the wise woman

carried it away.

When she stopped eating, her hostess knew exactly what she was

thinking; but it was one thing to understand the princess, and quite

another to make the princess understand her: that would require time.

For the present she took no notice, but went about the affairs of the

house, sweeping the floor, brushing down the cobwebs, cleaning the

hearth, dusting the table and chairs, and watering the bed to keep it

fresh and alive—for she never had more than one guest at a time, and

never would allow that guest to go to sleep upon any thing that had no

life in it. All the time she was thus busied, she spoke not a word to

the princess, which, with the princess, went to confirm her notion of

her purposes. But whatever she might have said would have been only

perverted by the princess into yet stronger proof of her evil designs,

for a fancy in her own head would outweigh any multitude of facts in

another’s. She kept staring at the fire, and never looked round to see

what the wise woman might be doing.

By and by she came close up to the back of her chair, and said,

“Rosamond!”

But the princess had fallen into one of her sulky moods, and shut

herself up with her own ugly Somebody; so she never looked round or

even answered the wise woman.

“Rosamond,” she repeated, “I am going out. If you are a good girl, that

is, if you do as I tell you, I will carry you back to your father and

mother the moment I return.”

The princess did not take the least notice.

“Look at me, Rosamond,” said the wise woman.

But Rosamond never moved—never even shrugged her shoulders—perhaps

because they were already up to her ears, and could go no farther.

“I want to help you to do what I tell you,” said the wise woman. “Look

at me.”

Still Rosamond was motionless and silent, saying only to herself,

“I know what she’s after! She wants to show me her horrid teeth. But I

won’t look. I’m not going to be frightened out of my senses to please

her.”

“You had better look, Rosamond. Have you forgotten how you kissed me

this morning?”

But Rosamond now regarded that little throb of affection as a momentary

weakness into which the deceitful ogress had betrayed her, and almost

despised herself for it. She was one of those who the more they are

coaxed are the more disagreeable. For such, the wise woman had an awful

punishment, but she remembered that the princess had been very ill

brought up, and therefore wished to try her with all gentleness first.

She stood silent for a moment, to see what effect her words might have.

But Rosamond only said to herself,—

“She wants to fatten and eat me.”

And it was such a little while since she had looked into the wise

woman’s loving eyes, thrown her arms round her neck, and kissed her!

“Well,” said the wise woman gently, after pausing as long as it seemed

possible she might bethink herself, “I must tell you then without; only

whoever listens with her back turned, listens but half, and gets but

half the help.”

“She wants to fatten me,” said the princess.

“You must keep the cottage tidy while I am out. When I come back, I

must see the fire bright, the hearth swept, and the kettle boiling; no

dust on the table or chairs, the windows clear, the floor clean, and

the heather in blossom—which last comes of sprinkling it with water

three times a day. When you are hungry, put your hand into that hole in

the wall, and you will find a meal.”

“She wants to fatten me,” said the princess.

“But on no account leave the house till I come back,” continued the

wise woman, “or you will grievously repent it. Remember what you have

already gone through to reach it. Dangers lie all around this cottage

of mine; but inside, it is the safest place—in fact the only quite safe

place in all the country.”

“She means to eat me,” said the princess, “and therefore wants to

frighten me from running away.”

She heard the voice no more. Then, suddenly startled at the thought of

being alone, she looked hastily over her shoulder. The cottage was

indeed empty of all visible life. It was soundless, too: there was not

even a ticking clock or a flapping flame. The fire burned still and

smouldering-wise; but it was all the company she had, and she turned

again to stare into it.

Soon she began to grow weary of having nothing to do. Then she

remembered that the old woman, as she called her, had told her to keep

the house tidy.

“The miserable little pig-sty!” she said. “Where’s the use of keeping

such a hovel clean!”

But in truth she would have been glad of the employment, only just

because she had been told to do it, she was unwilling; for there _are_

people—however unlikely it may seem—who object to doing a thing for no

other reason than that it is required of them.

“I am a princess,” she said, “and it is very improper to ask me to do

such a thing.”

She might have judged it quite as suitable for a princess to sweep away

the dust as to sit the centre of a world of dirt. But just because she

ought, she wouldn’t. Perhaps she feared that if she gave in to doing

her duty once, she might have to do it always—which was true enough—for

that was the very thing for which she had been specially born.

Unable, however, to feel quite comfortable in the resolve to neglect

it, she said to herself, “I’m sure there’s time enough for such a nasty

job as that!” and sat on, watching the fire as it burned away, the

glowing red casting off white flakes, and sinking lower and lower on

the hearth.

By and by, merely for want of something to do, she would see what the

old woman had left for her in the hole of the wall. But when she put in

her hand she found nothing there, except the dust which she ought by

this time to have wiped away. Never reflecting that the wise woman had

told her she would find food there _when she was hungry_, she flew into

one of her furies, calling her a cheat, and a thief, and a liar, and an

ugly old witch, and an ogress, and I do not know how many wicked names

besides. She raged until she was quite exhausted, and then fell fast

asleep on her chair. When she awoke the fire was out.

By this time she was hungry; but without looking in the hole, she began

again to storm at the wise woman, in which labor she would no doubt

have once more exhausted herself, had not something white caught her

eye: it was the corner of a napkin hanging from the hole in the wall.

She bounded to it, and there was a dinner for her of something

strangely good—one of her favorite dishes, only better than she had

ever tasted it before. This might surely have at least changed her mood

towards the wise woman; but she only grumbled to herself that it was as

it ought to be, ate up the food, and lay down on the bed, never

thinking of fire, or dust, or water for the heather.

The wind began to moan about the cottage, and grew louder and louder,

till a great gust came down the chimney, and again scattered the white

ashes all over the place. But the princess was by this time fast

asleep, and never woke till the wind had sunk to silence. One of the

consequences, however, of sleeping when one ought to be awake is waking

when one ought to be asleep; and the princess awoke in the black

midnight, and found enough to keep her awake. For although the wind had

fallen, there was a far more terrible howling than that of the wildest

wind all about the cottage. Nor was the howling all; the air was full

of strange cries; and everywhere she heard the noise of claws

scratching against the house, which seemed all doors and windows, so

crowded were the sounds, and from so many directions. All the night

long she lay half swooning, yet listening to the hideous noises. But

with the first glimmer of morning they ceased.

Then she said to herself, “How fortunate it was that I woke! They would

have eaten me up if I had been asleep.” The miserable little wretch

actually talked as if she had kept them out! If she had done her work

in the day, she would have slept through the terrors of the darkness,

and awaked fearless; whereas now, she had in the storehouse of her

heart a whole harvest of agonies, reaped from the dun fields of the

night!

They were neither wolves nor hyenas which had caused her such dismay,

but creatures of the air, more frightful still, which, as soon as the

smoke of the burning fir-wood ceased to spread itself abroad, and the

sun was a sufficient distance down the sky, and the lone cold woman was

out, came flying and howling about the cottage, trying to get in at

every door and window. Down the chimney they would have got, but that

at the heart of the fire there always lay a certain fir-cone, which

looked like solid gold red-hot, and which, although it might easily get

covered up with ashes, so as to be quite invisible, was continually in

a glow fit to kindle all the fir-cones in the world; this it was which

had kept the horrible birds—some say they have a claw at the tip of

every wing-feather—from tearing the poor naughty princess to pieces,

and gobbling her up.

When she rose and looked about her, she was dismayed to see what a

state the cottage was in. The fire was out, and the windows were all

dim with the wings and claws of the dirty birds, while the bed from

which she had just risen was brown and withered, and half its purple

bells had fallen. But she consoled herself that she could set all to

rights in a few minutes—only she must breakfast first. And, sure

enough, there was a basin of the delicious bread and milk ready for her

in the hole of the wall!

After she had eaten it, she felt comfortable, and sat for a long time

building castles in the air—till she was actually hungry again, without

having done an atom of work. She ate again, and was idle again, and ate

again. Then it grew dark, and she went trembling to bed, for now she

remembered the horrors of the last night. This time she never slept at

all, but spent the long hours in grievous terror, for the noises were

worse than before. She vowed she would not pass another night in such a

hateful haunted old shed for all the ugly women, witches, and ogresses

in the wide world. In the morning, however, she fell asleep, and slept

late.

Breakfast was of course her first thought, after which she could not

avoid that of work. It made her very miserable, but she feared the

consequences of being found with it undone. A few minutes before noon,

she actually got up, took her pinafore for a duster, and proceeded to

dust the table. But the wood-ashes flew about so, that it seemed

useless to attempt getting rid of them, and she sat down again to think

what was to be done. But there is very little indeed to be done when we

will not do that which we have to do.

Her first thought now was to run away at once while the sun was high,

and get through the forest before night came on. She fancied she could

easily go back the way she had come, and get home to her father’s

palace. But not the most experienced traveller in the world can ever go

back the way the wise woman has brought him.

She got up and went to the door. It was locked! What could the old

woman have meant by telling her not to leave the cottage? She was

indignant.

The wise woman had meant to make it difficult, but not impossible.

Before the princess, however, could find the way out, she heard a hand

at the door, and darted in terror behind it. The wise woman opened it,

and, leaving it open, walked straight to the hearth. Rosamond

immediately slid out, ran a little way, and then laid herself down in

the long heather.

V.

The wise woman walked straight up to the hearth, looked at the fire,

looked at the bed, glanced round the room, and went up to the table.

When she saw the one streak in the thick dust which the princess had

left there, a smile, half sad, half pleased, like the sun peeping

through a cloud on a rainy day in spring, gleamed over her face. She

went at once to the door, and called in a loud voice,

“Rosamond, come to me.”

All the wolves and hyenas, fast asleep in the wood, heard her voice,

and shivered in their dreams. No wonder then that the princess

trembled, and found herself compelled, she could not understand how, to

obey the summons. She rose, like the guilty thing she felt, forsook of

herself the hiding-place she had chosen, and walked slowly back to the

cottage she had left full of the signs of her shame. When she entered,

she saw the wise woman on her knees, building up the fire with

fir-cones. Already the flame was climbing through the heap in all

directions, crackling gently, and sending a sweet aromatic odor through

the dusty cottage.

“That is my part of the work,” she said, rising. “Now you do yours. But

first let me remind you that if you had not put it off, you would have

found it not only far easier, but by and by quite pleasant work, much

more pleasant than you can imagine now; nor would you have found the

time go wearily: you would neither have slept in the day and let the

fire out, nor waked at night and heard the howling of the beast-birds.

More than all, you would have been glad to see me when I came back; and

would have leaped into my arms instead of standing there, looking so

ugly and foolish.”

As she spoke, suddenly she held up before the princess a tiny mirror,

so clear that nobody looking into it could tell what it was made of, or

even see it at all—only the thing reflected in it. Rosamond saw a child

with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly eyes—which, not daring to

look forward, seemed trying to hide behind an impertinent nose—stooping

shoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes, and smears and stains

everywhere. That was what she had made herself. And to tell the truth,

she was shocked at the sight, and immediately began, in her dirty

heart, to lay the blame on the wise woman, because she had taken her

away from her nurses and her fine clothes; while all the time she knew

well enough that, close by the heather-bed, was the loveliest little

well, just big enough to wash in, the water of which was always

springing fresh from the ground, and running away through the wall.

Beside it lay the whitest of linen towels, with a comb made of

mother-of-pearl, and a brush of fir-needles, any one of which she had

been far too lazy to use. She dashed the glass out of the wise woman’s

hand, and there it lay, broken into a thousand pieces!

Without a word, the wise woman stooped, and gathered the fragments—did

not leave searching until she had gathered the last atom, and she laid

them all carefully, one by one, in the fire, now blazing high on the

hearth. Then she stood up and looked at the princess, who had been

watching her sulkily.

“Rosamond,” she said, with a countenance awful in its sternness, “until

you have cleansed this room—”

“She calls it a room!” sneered the princess to herself.

“You shall have no morsel to eat. You may drink of the well, but

nothing else you shall have. When the work I set you is done, you will

find food in the same place as before. I am going from home again; and

again I warn you not to leave the house.”

“She calls it a house!—It’s a good thing she’s going out of it anyhow!”

said the princess, turning her back for mere rudeness, for she was one

who, even if she liked a thing before, would dislike it the moment any

person in authority over her desired her to do it.

When she looked again, the wise woman had vanished.

Thereupon the princess ran at once to the door, and tried to open it;

but open it would not. She searched on all sides, but could discover no

way of getting out. The windows would not open—at least she could not

open them; and the only outlet seemed the chimney, which she was afraid

to try because of the fire, which looked angry, she thought, and shot

out green flames when she went near it. So she sat down to consider.

One may well wonder what room for consideration there was—with all her

work lying undone behind her. She sat thus, however, considering, as

she called it, until hunger began to sting her, when she jumped up and

put her hand as usual in the hole of the wall: there was nothing there.

She fell straight into one of her stupid rages; but neither her hunger

nor the hole in the wall heeded her rage. Then, in a burst of

self-pity, she fell a-weeping, but neither the hunger nor the hole

cared for her tears. The darkness began to come on, and her hunger grew

and grew, and the terror of the wild noises of the last night invaded

her. Then she began to feel cold, and saw that the fire was dying. She

darted to the heap of cones, and fed it. It blazed up cheerily, and she

was comforted a little. Then she thought with herself it would surely

be better to give in so far, and do a little work, than die of hunger.

So catching up a duster, she began upon the table. The dust flew about

and nearly choked her. She ran to the well to drink, and was refreshed

and encouraged. Perceiving now that it was a tedious plan to wipe the

dust from the table on to the floor, whence it would have all to be

swept up again, she got a wooden platter, wiped the dust into that,

carried it to the fire, and threw it in. But all the time she was

getting more and more hungry and, although she tried the hole again and

again, it was only to become more and more certain that work she must

if she would eat.

At length all the furniture was dusted, and she began to sweep the

floor, which happily, she thought of sprinkling with water, as from the

window she had seen them do to the marble court of the palace. That

swept, she rushed again to the hole—but still no food! She was on the

verge of another rage, when the thought came that she might have

forgotten something. To her dismay she found that table and chairs and

every thing was again covered with dust—not so badly as before,

however. Again she set to work, driven by hunger, and drawn by the hope

of eating, and yet again, after a second careful wiping, sought the

hole. But no! nothing was there for her! What could it mean?

Her asking this question was a sign of progress: it showed that she

expected the wise woman to keep her word. Then she bethought her that

she had forgotten the household utensils, and the dishes and plates,

some of which wanted to be washed as well as dusted.

Faint with hunger, she set to work yet again. One thing made her think

of another, until at length she had cleaned every thing she could think

of. Now surely she must find some food in the hole!

When this time also there was nothing, she began once more to abuse the

wise woman as false and treacherous;—but ah! there was the bed

unwatered! That was soon amended.—Still no supper! Ah! there was the

hearth unswept, and the fire wanted making up!—Still no supper! What

else could there be? She was at her wits’ end, and in very weariness,

not laziness this time, sat down and gazed into the fire. There, as she

gazed, she spied something brilliant,—shining even, in the midst of the

fire: it was the little mirror all whole again; but little she knew

that the dust which she had thrown into the fire had helped to heal it.

She drew it out carefully, and, looking into it, saw, not indeed the

ugly creature she had seen there before, but still a very dirty little

animal; whereupon she hurried to the well, took off her clothes,

plunged into it, and washed herself clean. Then she brushed and combed

her hair, made her clothes as tidy as might be, and ran to the hole in

the wall: there was a huge basin of bread and milk!

Never had she eaten any thing with half the relish! Alas! however, when

she had finished, she did not wash the basin, but left it as it was,

revealing how entirely all the rest had been done only from hunger.

Then she threw herself on the heather, and was fast asleep in a moment.

Never an evil bird came near her all that night, nor had she so much as

one troubled dream.

In the morning as she lay awake before getting up, she spied what

seemed a door behind the tall eight-day clock that stood silent in the

corner.

“Ah!” she thought, “that must be the way out!” and got up instantly.

The first thing she did, however, was to go to the hole in the wall.

Nothing was there.

“Well, I am hardly used!” she cried aloud. “All that cleaning for the

cross old woman yesterday, and this for my trouble,—nothing for

breakfast! Not even a crust of bread! Does Mistress Ogress fancy a

princess will bear that?”

The poor foolish creature seemed to think that the work of one day

ought to serve for the next day too! But that is nowhere the way in the

whole universe. How could there be a universe in that case? And even

she never dreamed of applying the same rule to her breakfast.

“How good I was all yesterday!” she said, “and how hungry and ill used

I am to-day!”

But she would _not_ be a slave, and do over again to-day what she had

done only last night! _She_ didn’t care about her breakfast! She might

have it no doubt if she dusted all the wretched place again, but she

was not going to do that—at least, without seeing first what lay behind

the clock!

Off she darted, and putting her hand behind the clock found the latch

of a door. It lifted, and the door opened a little way. By squeezing

hard, she managed to get behind the clock, and so through the door. But

how she stared, when instead of the open heath, she found herself on

the marble floor of a large and stately room, lighted only from above.

Its walls were strengthened by pilasters, and in every space between

was a large picture, from cornice to floor. She did not know what to

make of it. Surely she had run all round the cottage, and certainly had

seen nothing of this size near it! She forgot that she had also run

round what she took for a hay-mow, a peat-stack, and several other

things which looked of no consequence in the moonlight.

“So, then,” she cried, “the old woman _is_ a cheat! I believe she’s an

ogress, after all, and lives in a palace—though she pretends it’s only

a cottage, to keep people from suspecting that she eats good little

children like me!”

Had the princess been tolerably tractable, she would, by this time,

have known a good deal about the wise woman’s beautiful house, whereas

she had never till now got farther than the porch. Neither was she at

all in its innermost places now.

But, king’s daughter as she was, she was not a little daunted when,

stepping forward from the recess of the door, she saw what a great

lordly hall it was. She dared hardly look to the other end, it seemed

so far off: so she began to gaze at the things near her, and the

pictures first of all, for she had a great liking for pictures. One in

particular attracted her attention. She came back to it several times,

and at length stood absorbed in it.

A blue summer sky, with white fleecy clouds floating beneath it, hung

over a hill green to the very top, and alive with streams darting down

its sides toward the valley below. On the face of the hill strayed a

flock of sheep feeding, attended by a shepherd and two dogs. A little

way apart, a girl stood with bare feet in a brook, building across it a

bridge of rough stones. The wind was blowing her hair back from her

rosy face. A lamb was feeding close beside her; and a sheepdog was

trying to reach her hand to lick it.

“Oh, how I wish I were that little girl!” said the princess aloud. “I

wonder how it is that some people are made to be so much happier than

others! If I were that little girl, no one would ever call me naughty.”

She gazed and gazed at the picture. At length she said to herself,

“I do not believe it is a picture. It is the real country, with a real

hill, and a real little girl upon it. I shall soon see whether this

isn’t another of the old witch’s cheats!”

She went close up to the picture, lifted her foot, and stepped over the

frame.

“I am free, I am free!” she exclaimed; and she felt the wind upon her

cheek.

The sound of a closing door struck on her ear. She turned—and there was

a blank wall, without door or window, behind her. The hill with the

sheep was before her, and she set out at once to reach it.

Now, if I am asked how this could be, I can only answer, that it was a

result of the interaction of things outside and things inside, of the

wise woman’s skill, and the silly child’s folly. If this does not

satisfy my questioner, I can only add, that the wise woman was able to

do far more wonderful things than this.

VI.

Meantime the wise woman was busy as she always was; and her business

now was with the child of the shepherd and shepherdess, away in the

north. Her name was Agnes.

Her father and mother were poor, and could not give her many things.

Rosamond would have utterly despised the rude, simple playthings she

had. Yet in one respect they were of more value far than hers: the king

bought Rosamond’s with his money; Agnes’s father made hers with his

hands.

And while Agnes had but few things—not seeing many things about her,

and not even knowing that there were many things anywhere, she did not

wish for many things, and was therefore neither covetous nor

avaricious.

She played with the toys her father made her, and thought them the most

wonderful things in the world—windmills, and little crooks, and

water-wheels, and sometimes lambs made all of wool, and dolls made out

of the leg-bones of sheep, which her mother dressed for her; and of

such playthings she was never tired. Sometimes, however, she preferred

playing with stones, which were plentiful, and flowers, which were few,

or the brooks that ran down the hill, of which, although they were

many, she could only play with one at a time, and that, indeed,

troubled her a little—or live lambs that were not all wool, or the

sheep-dogs, which were very friendly with her, and the best of

playfellows, as she thought, for she had no human ones to compare them

with. Neither was she greedy after nice things, but content, as well

she might be, with the homely food provided for her. Nor was she by

nature particularly self-willed or disobedient; she generally did what

her father and mother wished, and believed what they told her. But by

degrees they had spoiled her; and this was the way: they were so proud

of her that they always repeated every thing she said, and told every

thing she did, even when she was present; and so full of admiration of

their child were they, that they wondered and laughed at and praised

things in her which in another child would never have struck them as

the least remarkable, and some things even which would in another have

disgusted them altogether. Impertinent and rude things done by _their_

child they thought _so_ clever! laughing at them as something quite

marvellous; her commonplace speeches were said over again as if they

had been the finest poetry; and the pretty ways which every moderately

good child has were extolled as if the result of her excellent taste,

and the choice of her judgment and will. They would even say sometimes

that she ought not to hear her own praises for fear it should make her

vain, and then whisper them behind their hands, but so loud that she

could not fail to hear every word. The consequence was that she soon

came to believe—so soon, that she could not recall the time when she

did not believe, as the most absolute fact in the universe, that she

was _Somebody;_ that is, she became most immoderately conceited.

Now as the least atom of conceit is a thing to be ashamed of, you may

fancy what she was like with such a quantity of it inside her!

At first it did not show itself outside in any very active form; but

the wise woman had been to the cottage, and had seen her sitting alone,

with such a smile of self-satisfaction upon her face as would have been

quite startling to her, if she had ever been startled at any thing; for

through that smile she could see lying at the root of it the worm that

made it. For some smiles are like the ruddiness of certain apples,

which is owing to a centipede, or other creeping thing, coiled up at

the heart of them. Only her worm had a face and shape the very image of

her own; and she looked so simpering, and mawkish, and self-conscious,

and silly, that she made the wise woman feel rather sick.

Not that the child was a fool. Had she been, the wise woman would have

only pitied and loved her, instead of feeling sick when she looked at

her. She had very fair abilities, and were she once but made humble,

would be capable not only of doing a good deal in time, but of

beginning at once to grow to no end. But, if she were not made humble,

her growing would be to a mass of distorted shapes all huddled

together; so that, although the body she now showed might grow up

straight and well-shaped and comely to behold, the new body that was

growing inside of it, and would come out of it when she died, would be

ugly, and crooked this way and that, like an aged hawthorn that has

lived hundreds of years exposed upon all sides to salt sea-winds.

As time went on, this disease of self-conceit went on too, gradually

devouring the good that was in her. For there is no fault that does not

bring its brothers and sisters and cousins to live with it. By degrees,

from thinking herself so clever, she came to fancy that whatever seemed

to her, must of course be the correct judgment, and whatever she

wished, the right thing; and grew so obstinate, that at length her

parents feared to thwart her in any thing, knowing well that she would

never give in. But there are victories far worse than defeats; and to

overcome an angel too gentle to put out all his strength, and ride away

in triumph on the back of a devil, is one of the poorest.

So long as she was left to take her own way and do as she would, she

gave her parents little trouble. She would play about by herself in the

little garden with its few hardy flowers, or amongst the heather where

the bees were busy; or she would wander away amongst the hills, and be

nobody knew where, sometimes from morning to night; nor did her parents

venture to find fault with her.

She never went into rages like the princess, and would have thought

Rosamond—oh, so ugly and vile! if she had seen her in one of her

passions. But she was no better, for all that, and was quite as ugly in

the eyes of the wise woman, who could not only see but read her face.

What is there to choose between a face distorted to hideousness by

anger, and one distorted to silliness by self-complacency? True, there

is more hope of helping the angry child out of her form of selfishness

than the conceited child out of hers; but on the other hand, the

conceited child was not so terrible or dangerous as the wrathful one.

The conceited one, however, was sometimes very angry, and then her

anger was more spiteful than the other’s; and, again, the wrathful one

was often very conceited too. So that, on the whole, of two very

unpleasant creatures, I would say that the king’s daughter would have

been the worse, had not the shepherd’s been quite as bad. But, as I

have said, the wise woman had her eye upon her: she saw that something

special must be done, else she would be one of those who kneel to their

own shadows till feet grow on their knees; then go down on their hands

till their hands grow into feet; then lay their faces on the ground

till they grow into snouts; when at last they are a hideous sort of

lizards, each of which believes himself the best, wisest, and loveliest

being in the world, yea, the very centre of the universe. And so they

run about forever looking for their own shadows, that they may worship

them, and miserable because they cannot find them, being themselves too

near the ground to have any shadows; and what becomes of them at last

there is but one who knows.

The wise woman, therefore, one day walked up to the door of the

shepherd’s cottage, dressed like a poor woman, and asked for a drink of

water. The shepherd’s wife looked at her, liked her, and brought her a

cup of milk. The wise woman took it, for she made it a rule to accept

every kindness that was offered her.

Agnes was not by nature a greedy girl, as I have said; but self-conceit

will go far to generate every other vice under the sun. Vanity, which

is a form of self-conceit, has repeatedly shown itself as the deepest

feeling in the heart of a horrible murderess.

That morning, at breakfast, her mother had stinted her in milk—just a

little—that she might have enough to make some milk-porridge for their

dinner. Agnes did not mind it at the time, but when she saw the milk

now given to a beggar, as she called the wise woman—though, surely, one

might ask a draught of water, and accept a draught of milk, without

being a beggar in any such sense as Agnes’s contemptuous use of the

word implied—a cloud came upon her forehead, and a double vertical

wrinkle settled over her nose. The wise woman saw it, for all her

business was with Agnes though she little knew it, and, rising, went

and offered the cup to the child, where she sat with her knitting in a

corner. Agnes looked at it, did not want it, was inclined to refuse it

from a beggar, but thinking it would show her consequence to assert her

rights, took it and drank it up. For whoever is possessed by a devil,

judges with the mind of that devil; and hence Agnes was guilty of such

a meanness as many who are themselves capable of something just as bad

will consider incredible.

The wise woman waited till she had finished it—then, looking into the

empty cup, said:

“You might have given me back as much as you had no claim upon!”

Agnes turned away and made no answer—far less from shame than

indignation.

The wise woman looked at the mother.

“You should not have offered it to her if you did not mean her to have

it,” said the mother, siding with the devil in her child against the

wise woman and her child too. Some foolish people think they take

another’s part when they take the part he takes.

The wise woman said nothing, but fixed her eyes upon her, and soon the

mother hid her face in her apron weeping. Then she turned again to

Agnes, who had never looked round but sat with her back to both, and

suddenly lapped her in the folds of her cloak. When the mother again

lifted her eyes, she had vanished.

Never supposing she had carried away her child, but uncomfortable

because of what she had said to the poor woman, the mother went to the

door, and called after her as she toiled slowly up the hill. But she

never turned her head; and the mother went back into her cottage.

The wise woman walked close past the shepherd and his dogs, and through

the midst of his flock of sheep. The shepherd wondered where she could

be going—right up the hill. There was something strange about her too,

he thought; and he followed her with his eyes as she went up and up.

It was near sunset, and as the sun went down, a gray cloud settled on

the top of the mountain, which his last rays turned into a rosy gold.

Straight into this cloud the shepherd saw the woman hold her pace, and

in it she vanished. He little imagined that his child was under her

cloak.

He went home as usual in the evening, but Agnes had not come in. They

were accustomed to such an absence now and then, and were not at first

frightened; but when it grew dark and she did not appear, the husband

set out with his dogs in one direction, and the wife in another, to

seek their child. Morning came and they had not found her. Then the

whole country-side arose to search for the missing Agnes; but day after

day and night after night passed, and nothing was discovered of or

concerning her, until at length all gave up the search in despair

except the mother, although she was nearly convinced now that the poor

woman had carried her off.

One day she had wandered some distance from her cottage, thinking she

might come upon the remains of her daughter at the foot of some cliff,

when she came suddenly, instead, upon a disconsolate-looking creature

sitting on a stone by the side of a stream.

Her hair hung in tangles from her head; her clothes were tattered, and

through the rents her skin showed in many places; her cheeks were

white, and worn thin with hunger; the hollows were dark under her eyes,

and they stood out scared and wild. When she caught sight of the

shepherdess, she jumped to her feet, and would have run away, but fell

down in a faint.

At first sight the mother had taken her for her own child, but now she

saw, with a pang of disappointment, that she had mistaken. Full of

compassion, nevertheless, she said to herself:

“If she is not my Agnes, she is as much in need of help as if she were.

If I cannot be good to my own, I will be as good as I can to some other

woman’s; and though I should scorn to be consoled for the loss of one

by the presence of another, I yet may find some gladness in rescuing

one child from the death which has taken the other.”

Perhaps her words were not just like these, but her thoughts were. She

took up the child, and carried her home. And this is how Rosamond came

to occupy the place of the little girl whom she had envied in the

picture.

VII.

Notwithstanding the differences between the two girls, which were,

indeed, so many that most people would have said they were not in the

least alike, they were the same in this, that each cared more for her

own fancies and desires than for any thing else in the world. But I

will tell you another difference: the princess was like several

children in one—such was the variety of her moods; and in one mood she

had no recollection or care about any thing whatever belonging to a

previous mood—not even if it had left her but a moment before, and had

been so violent as to make her ready to put her hand in the fire to get

what she wanted. Plainly she was the mere puppet of her moods, and more

than that, any cunning nurse who knew her well enough could call or

send away those moods almost as she pleased, like a showman pulling

strings behind a show. Agnes, on the contrary, seldom changed her mood,

but kept that of calm assured self-satisfaction. Father nor mother had

ever by wise punishment helped her to gain a victory over herself, and

do what she did not like or choose; and their folly in reasoning with

one unreasonable had fixed her in her conceit. She would actually nod

her head to herself in complacent pride that she had stood out against

them. This, however, was not so difficult as to justify even the pride

of having conquered, seeing she loved them so little, and paid so

little attention to the arguments and persuasions they used. Neither,

when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman’s

cloak, did she behave in the least like the princess, for she was not

afraid. “She’ll soon set me down,” she said, too self-important to

suppose that any one would dare do her an injury.

Whether it be a good thing or a bad not to be afraid depends on what

the fearlessness is founded upon. Some have no fear, because they have

no knowledge of the danger: there is nothing fine in that. Some are too

stupid to be afraid: there is nothing fine in that. Some who are not

easily frightened would yet turn their backs and run, the moment they

were frightened: such never had more courage than fear. But the man who

will do his work in spite of his fear is a man of true courage. The

fearlessness of Agnes was only ignorance: she did not know what it was

to be hurt; she had never read a single story of giant, or ogress or

wolf; and her mother had never carried out one of her threats of

punishment. If the wise woman had but pinched her, she would have shown

herself an abject little coward, trembling with fear at every change of

motion so long as she carried her.

Nothing such, however, was in the wise woman’s plan for the curing of

her. On and on she carried her without a word. She knew that if she set

her down she would never run after her like the princess, at least not

before the evil thing was already upon her. On and on she went, never

halting, never letting the light look in, or Agnes look out. She walked

very fast, and got home to her cottage very soon after the princess had

gone from it.

But she did not set Agnes down either in the cottage or in the great

hall. She had other places, none of them alike. The place she had

chosen for Agnes was a strange one—such a one as is to be found nowhere

else in the wide world.

It was a great hollow sphere, made of a substance similar to that of

the mirror which Rosamond had broken, but differently compounded. That

substance no one could see by itself. It had neither door, nor window,

nor any opening to break its perfect roundness.

The wise woman carried Agnes into a dark room, there undressed her,

took from her hand her knitting-needles, and put her, naked as she was

born, into the hollow sphere.

What sort of a place it was she could not tell. She could see nothing

but a faint cold bluish light all about her. She could not feel that

any thing supported her, and yet she did not sink. She stood for a

while, perfectly calm, then sat down. Nothing bad could happen to

_her_—she was so important! And, indeed, it was but this: she had cared

only for Somebody, and now she was going to have only Somebody. Her own

choice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her than she

would have knowingly carried it for herself.

After sitting a while, she wished she had something to do, but nothing

came. A little longer, and it grew wearisome. She would see whether she

could not walk out of the strange luminous dusk that surrounded her.

Walk she found she could, well enough, but walk out she could not. On

and on she went, keeping as much in a straight line as she might, but

after walking until she was thoroughly tired, she found herself no

nearer out of her prison than before. She had not, indeed, advanced a

single step; for, in whatever direction she tried to go, the sphere

turned round and round, answering her feet accordingly. Like a squirrel

in his cage she but kept placing another spot of the cunningly

suspended sphere under her feet, and she would have been still only at

its lowest point after walking for ages.

At length she cried aloud; but there was no answer. It grew dreary and

drearier—in her, that is: outside there was no change. Nothing was

overhead, nothing under foot, nothing on either hand, but the same

pale, faint, bluish glimmer. She wept at last, then grew very angry,

and then sullen; but nobody heeded whether she cried or laughed. It was

all the same to the cold unmoving twilight that rounded her. On and on

went the dreary hours—or did they go at all?—“no change, no pause, no

hope;”—on and on till she _felt_ she was forgotten, and then she grew

strangely still and fell asleep.

The moment she was asleep, the wise woman came, lifted her out, and

laid her in her bosom; fed her with a wonderful milk, which she

received without knowing it; nursed her all the night long, and, just

ere she woke, laid her back in the blue sphere again.

When first she came to herself, she thought the horrors of the

preceding day had been all a dream of the night. But they soon asserted

themselves as facts, for here they were!—nothing to see but a cold blue

light, and nothing to do but see it. Oh, how slowly the hours went by!

She lost all notion of time. If she had been told that she had been

there twenty years, she would have believed it—or twenty minutes—it

would have been all the same: except for weariness, time was for her no

more.

Another night came, and another still, during both of which the wise

woman nursed and fed her. But she knew nothing of that, and the same

one dreary day seemed ever brooding over her.

All at once, on the third day, she was aware that a naked child was

seated beside her. But there was something about the child that made

her shudder. She never looked at Agnes, but sat with her chin sunk on

her chest, and her eyes staring at her own toes. She was the color of

pale earth, with a pinched nose, and a mere slit in her face for a

mouth.

“How ugly she is!” thought Agnes. “What business has she beside me!”

But it was so lonely that she would have been glad to play with a

serpent, and put out her hand to touch her. She touched nothing. The

child, also, put out her hand—but in the direction away from Agnes. And

that was well, for if she had touched Agnes it would have killed her.

Then Agnes said, “Who are you?” And the little girl said, “Who are

you?” “I am Agnes,” said Agnes; and the little girl said, “I am Agnes.”

Then Agnes thought she was mocking her, and said, “You are ugly;” and

the little girl said, “You are ugly.”

Then Agnes lost her temper, and put out her hands to seize the little

girl; but lo! the little girl was gone, and she found herself tugging

at her own hair. She let go; and there was the little girl again! Agnes

was furious now, and flew at her to bite her. But she found her teeth

in her own arm, and the little girl was gone—only to return again; and

each time she came back she was tenfold uglier than before. And now

Agnes hated her with her whole heart.

The moment she hated her, it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust

that the child was not another, but her Self, her Somebody, and that

she was now shut up with her for ever and ever—no more for one moment

ever to be alone. In her agony of despair, sleep descended, and she

slept.

When she woke, there was the little girl, heedless, ugly, miserable,

staring at her own toes. All at once, the creature began to smile, but

with such an odious, self-satisfied expression, that Agnes felt ashamed

of seeing her. Then she began to pat her own cheeks, to stroke her own

body, and examine her finger-ends, nodding her head with satisfaction.

Agnes felt that there could not be such another hateful, ape-like

creature, and at the same time was perfectly aware she was only doing

outside of her what she herself had been doing, as long as she could

remember, inside of her.

She turned sick at herself, and would gladly have been put out of

existence, but for three days the odious companionship went on. By the

third day, Agnes was not merely sick but ashamed of the life she had

hitherto led, was despicable in her own eyes, and astonished that she

had never seen the truth concerning herself before.

The next morning she woke in the arms of the wise woman; the horror had

vanished from her sight, and two heavenly eyes were gazing upon her.

She wept and clung to her, and the more she clung, the more tenderly

did the great strong arms close around her.

When she had lain thus for a while, the wise woman carried her into her

cottage, and washed her in the little well; then dressed her in clean

garments, and gave her bread and milk. When she had eaten it, she

called her to her, and said very solemnly,—

“Agnes, you must not imagine you are cured. That you are ashamed of

yourself now is no sign that the cause for such shame has ceased. In

new circumstances, especially after you have done well for a while, you

will be in danger of thinking just as much of yourself as before. So

beware of yourself. I am going from home, and leave you in charge of

the house. Do just as I tell you till my return.”

She then gave her the same directions she had formerly given

Rosamond—with this difference, that she told her to go into the

picture-hall when she pleased, showing her the entrance, against which

the clock no longer stood—and went away, closing the door behind her.

VIII.

As soon as she was left alone, Agnes set to work tidying and dusting

the cottage, made up the fire, watered the bed, and cleaned the inside

of the windows: the wise woman herself always kept the outside of them

clean. When she had done, she found her dinner—of the same sort she was

used to at home, but better—in the hole of the wall. When she had eaten

it, she went to look at the pictures.

By this time her old disposition had begun to rouse again. She had been

doing her duty, and had in consequence begun again to think herself

Somebody. However strange it may well seem, to do one’s duty will make

any one conceited who only does it sometimes. Those who do it always

would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of

doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking

pockets? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of

doing one’s duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how

little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any

but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our

duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.

So Agnes began to stroke herself once more, forgetting her late

self-stroking companion, and never reflecting that she was now doing

what she had then abhorred. And in this mood she went into the

picture-gallery.

The first picture she saw represented a square in a great city, one

side of which was occupied by a splendid marble palace, with great

flights of broad steps leading up to the door. Between it and the

square was a marble-paved court, with gates of brass, at which stood

sentries in gorgeous uniforms, and to which was affixed the following

proclamation in letters of gold, large enough for Agnes to read:—

“By the will of the King, from this time until further notice, every

stray child found in the realm shall be brought without a moment’s

delay to the palace. Whoever shall be found having done otherwise shall

straightway lose his head by the hand of the public executioner.”

Agnes’s heart beat loud, and her face flushed.

“Can there be such a city in the world?” she said to herself. “If I

only knew where it was, I should set out for it at once. _There_ would

be the place for a clever girl like me!”

Her eyes fell on the picture which had so enticed Rosamond. It was the

very country where her father fed his flocks. Just round the shoulder

of the hill was the cottage where her parents lived, where she was born

and whence she had been carried by the beggar-woman.

“Ah!” she said, “they didn’t know me there. They little thought what I

could be, if I had the chance. If I were but in this good, kind,

loving, generous king’s palace, I should soon be such a great lady as

they never saw! Then they would understand what a good little girl I

had always been! And I shouldn’t forget my poor parents like some I

have read of. _I_ would be generous. _I_ should never be selfish and

proud like girls in story-books!”

As she said this, she turned her back with disdain upon the picture of

her home, and setting herself before the picture of the palace, stared

at it with wide ambitious eyes, and a heart whose every beat was a

throb of arrogant self-esteem.

The shepherd-child was now worse than ever the poor princess had been.

For the wise woman had given her a terrible lesson one of which the

princess was not capable, and she had known what it meant; yet here she

was as bad as ever, therefore worse than before. The ugly creature

whose presence had made her so miserable had indeed crept out of sight

and mind too—but where was she? Nestling in her very heart, where most

of all she had her company, and least of all could see her. The wise

woman had called her out, that Agnes might see what sort of creature

she was herself; but now she was snug in her soul’s bed again, and she

did not even suspect she was there.

After gazing a while at the palace picture, during which her ambitious

pride rose and rose, she turned yet again in condescending mood, and

honored the home picture with one stare more.

“What a poor, miserable spot it is compared with this lordly palace!”

she said.

But presently she spied something in it she had not seen before, and

drew nearer. It was the form of a little girl, building a bridge of

stones over one of the hill-brooks.

“Ah, there I am myself!” she said. “That is just how I used to do.—No,”

she resumed, “it is not me. That snub-nosed little fright could never

be meant for me! It was the frock that made me think so. But it _is_ a

picture of the place. I declare, I can see the smoke of the cottage

rising from behind the hill! What a dull, dirty, insignificant spot it

is! And what a life to lead there!”

She turned once more to the city picture. And now a strange thing took

place. In proportion as the other, to the eyes of her mind, receded

into the background, this, to her present bodily eyes, appeared to come

forward and assume reality. At last, after it had been in this way

growing upon her for some time, she gave a cry of conviction, and said

aloud,—

“I do believe it is real! That frame is only a trick of the woman to

make me fancy it a picture lest I should go and make my fortune. She is

a witch, the ugly old creature! It would serve her right to tell the

king and have her punished for not taking me to the palace—one of his

poor lost children he is so fond of! I should like to see her ugly old

head cut off. Anyhow I will try my luck without asking her leave. How

she has ill used me!”

But at that moment, she heard the voice of the wise woman calling,

“Agnes!” and, smoothing her face, she tried to look as good as she

could, and walked back into the cottage. There stood the wise woman,

looking all round the place, and examining her work. She fixed her eyes

upon Agnes in a way that confused her, and made her cast hers down, for

she felt as if she were reading her thoughts. The wise woman, however,

asked no questions, but began to talk about her work, approving of some

of it, which filled her with arrogance, and showing how some of it

might have been done better, which filled her with resentment. But the

wise woman seemed to take no care of what she might be thinking, and

went straight on with her lesson. By the time it was over, the power of

reading thoughts would not have been necessary to a knowledge of what

was in the mind of Agnes, for it had all come to the surface—that is up

into her face, which is the surface of the mind. Ere it had time to

sink down again, the wise woman caught up the little mirror, and held

it before her: Agnes saw her Somebody—the very embodiment of miserable

conceit and ugly ill-temper. She gave such a scream of horror that the

wise woman pitied her, and laying aside the mirror, took her upon her

knees, and talked to her most kindly and solemnly; in particular about

the necessity of destroying the ugly things that come out of the

heart—so ugly that they make the very face over them ugly also.

And what was Agnes doing all the time the wise woman was talking to

her? Would you believe it?—instead of thinking how to kill the ugly

things in her heart, she was with all her might resolving to be more

careful of her face, that is, to keep down the things in her heart so

that they should not show in her face, she was resolving to be a

hypocrite as well as a self-worshipper. Her heart was wormy, and the

worms were eating very fast at it now.

Then the wise woman laid her gently down upon the heather-bed, and she

fell fast asleep, and had an awful dream about her Somebody.

When she woke in the morning, instead of getting up to do the work of

the house, she lay thinking—to evil purpose. In place of taking her

dream as a warning, and thinking over what the wise woman had said the

night before, she communed with herself in this fashion:—