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 THE WISE WOMAN
 
 BY GEORGE MAC DONALD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ALEC FORBES," "DAVID ELGINBROD " 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 34, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 1875
 
 CHAPTER 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 
 
 B 
 
 2203404
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 dan- 
 delion 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 syca- 
 mores, 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 odours, 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
 
 A PARABLE. 3 
 
 that only, but with clumsy hands spoiling what I 
 steal : 
 
 " O Rain, with your dull two-fold 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
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 earth- 
 quake, 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 her 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
 
 A PARABLE. 5 
 
 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
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 tla0R 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
 
 A PARABLE. 7 
 
 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 
 au^^that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid, 
 not a cousin that was less than a farm-labourer, not 
 a second cousin that was less than a gKiitU, 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 labourers 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
 
 8 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 waf^fcast 
 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 llie World should grow up like them, 
 wanting everything she could and everything 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
 
 A PARABLE. 9 
 
 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 ringers 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
 
 IO THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 everything, 
 but she got tired of . everything 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
 
 A PARADLE. I I 
 
 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 clamour 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,
 
 12 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 
 everything and everybody and all that happened, 
 and grew more and more disagreeable to everyone 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 13 
 
 did anything 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 honour, 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..
 
 14 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 anything 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, dis- 
 closed 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." 
 
 "What! Treated her badly?" gasped the king. 
 
 " She is a very wicked child," said the queen ; 
 and both glared with indignation.
 
 A PARABLE. 15 
 
 " 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 
 arc 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
 
 1 6 THK WISE WOMAN. 
 
 \vrath 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 
 \vas over, for it lasted till the early morning, in 
 rushed Rosamond, clutching in her hands 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,
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 in the attempt to tear the squealing, pink-eared, 
 red-eyed thing to pieces. 
 
 w Rosa ! ~R.oBB.mond! " cried the queen ; where- 
 upon 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. 
 
 C
 
 l8 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 For the princess, she was nowhere to be found 
 The queen went into hysterics, and the rabbit ran 
 away. The king sent out messengers, 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 move- 
 ment 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, what- 
 ever 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.
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 HTHE 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, 
 lie was indeed aware of a most angry crying, 
 which reminded him of his daughter, but it sounded
 
 2O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 north- 
 wards 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
 
 A PARABLE. 21 
 
 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 kind- 
 ness. 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
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 kind- 
 ness. 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 stern- 
 ness on the face of the wise woman came from the
 
 A PARABLE. 23 
 
 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 w r ell up in the heart of the prin- 
 cess, 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.
 
 24 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 After a little while the wise woman began to 
 sing to her, and the princess could not help listen- 
 ing, 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 talcs 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 !
 
 
 A PARABLE. 2$ 
 
 She is all alone 
 
 Like a clog-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 ex] ire; 
 And now she is cold ~s death. 
 
 She never will sn.ile 
 
 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
 
 26 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 moon- 
 light. Then all at once the princess perceived 
 that 'she was left alone with the moon looking
 
 A PARABLE. 2J 
 
 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 I 
 
 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
 
 28 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 ready to begin another. The wise woman there- 
 fore 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 top- 
 most 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
 
 A PARABLE. 29 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness 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
 
 3O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 harkcn 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 hyaenas 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.
 
 A PARADLK. 3! 
 
 The noise she made herself, however, prevented her 
 from hearing either their howls or the soft patterirg 
 of their many trampling feet as they bounded over 
 the fallen fir-needles and cones. 
 
 One huge old wolf had outspcd 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 opjn 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 r
 
 32 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 hyaenas 
 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, ->ut went 
 walking on as before.
 
 A PARABLE. 33 
 
 In a little while she unfolded her cloak, ind 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 white-washed 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 ihis time have 
 known it, she once more began kicking and 
 
 D
 
 34 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 screaming, whereupon yet once more the wise 
 woman set her dov/n 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
 
 CHAPTER 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
 
 36 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 hyaenas. 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 
 
 ^
 
 A PARABLE. 37 
 
 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
 
 38 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 anything 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 further 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
 
 A PARABLE. 39 
 
 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 
 hyaenas 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,
 
 4O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 4! 
 
 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 
 Avail 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."
 
 42 THE WISE AVOMAX. 
 
 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 satisfac- 
 tion 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 

 
 A PARABLE. 45 
 
 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 veiy 
 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
 
 44 TH E WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 swal- 
 lowed 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
 
 A PARABLE. 45 
 
 
 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 lumber- 
 ing 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
 
 .46 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 Jieather, 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 for ever 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 for ever look about her as 
 she went on and on and on never seeing anything, 
 and never expecting to see anything ! 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
 
 A PARABLE. 47 
 
 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 Da- 
 mascus.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 *inHE wise woman lifted the princess tenderly, 
 and washed and dressed her far more care- 
 fully than even her nurse. Then she set her down 
 by the fire, and prepared her breakfast. She 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 anything 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 ! "
 
 A PARABLE. 40 
 
 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 
 wouM 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 
 
 E
 
 5O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 out- 
 weigh 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 cany 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.
 
 A PARABLE. !; [ 
 
 But Rosamond never moved never even shruer- 
 
 o 
 
 ged her shoulders perhaps because they were 
 already up to her ears and could go no further. 
 
 "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 cf 
 affection as a momentary weakness into which the 
 deceitful ogress had betrayed her, and almost de- 
 spised 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
 
 52 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 53 
 
 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 ;
 
 54 TIIE WIS E WOMAN. 
 
 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 arc 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
 
 
 A PARABLE. 55 
 
 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.
 
 56 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 look- 
 ing in the hole, she began again to storm at the 
 wise woman, in which labour she would no doubt 
 have once more exhausted herself, had not some- 
 thing 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 favourite 
 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 
 f.re or dust, or water for the heather.
 
 A PARABLE. 57 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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.
 
 58 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 hyaenas 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
 
 A PARABLE. 59 
 
 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 !
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 6l 
 
 the wood-ashes flew about so, that it seemed use- 
 less 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 tli2 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
 
 62 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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.
 
 CHAPTER 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 hyccnas, fast asleep in the 
 wood, heard her voice, and shivered in their
 
 64 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 dreams. No wonder then that the princess trem- 
 bled, 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 
 lier 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 odour 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
 
 A PARABLE. 65 
 
 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, 
 co\vardly 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 
 
 F
 
 66 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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, after which 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 67 
 
 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,
 
 53 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 w ith 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
 
 A PARABLE. 69 
 
 grew and grew, and the terror of the wild noises of 
 the last nights 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 arid 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 cat.
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 everything was again 
 covered with dust, not so badly as before, how- 
 ever. 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 ? 
 
 I ler 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
 
 A PARABLE. "Jl 
 
 dishes and plates, some of which wanted to be 
 v/ashed as well as dusted. 
 
 Faint with hunger, she set to work yet again. 
 One tiling made her think of another, until at 
 length she had cleaned everything she could 
 think of. Now surely she must find some food in 
 the hole ! 
 
 When this time also there was nothing, shi 
 began once more to abuse the wise woman as fals2 
 and treacherous ; but ah ! there was the bed 
 imwatered ! 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
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 anything 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.
 
 A PARABLE. 73 
 
 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 
 cut ! " 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 clay 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 apply- 
 ing the same rule to her breakfast.
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 " 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 ! SJie 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 75 
 
 cottage, and certainly had seen nothing of this size 
 near it ! She forgot that she had also run round 
 v.-hat 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 further 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,
 
 76 THE WISE WOMAX. 
 
 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 sheep-dog was try- 
 ing 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 arc made to be so much happier than others !
 
 A PARABLE. 77 
 
 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
 
 73 THE WISE V/OMAX. 
 
 tilings 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.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TV/I" EANTIME 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 sec-
 
 SO THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 ing 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, how- 
 ever, 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 Iambs 
 that were not all wool, or the sheep-dogs, which 
 were very friendly with her, and the best of play- 
 fellows, as she thought, for she had no human ones
 
 A PARABLE. Si 
 
 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 everything she said, and told everything 
 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 
 G
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 some- 
 times 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 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 83 
 
 self-satisfaction upon her face as would have been 
 quite startling to her, if she had ever been startled 
 at anything. 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
 
 84 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 anything, knowing well that she 
 would never give in. But there are victories far
 
 A PARABLE. 85 
 
 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 gar- 
 den 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
 
 86 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 choose between a face distorted to hideousness by 
 anger, and one distorted to silliness by self-com- 
 placency ? 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 w r ould 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
 
 A PARABLE. 87 
 
 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 for ever looking for their own 
 shadows that they may worship them, and miser- 
 able because they cannot find them, being them- 
 selves 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
 
 88 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 mur- 
 deress. 
 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 89 
 
 lier 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 
 Iliad 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 
 vvith the devil in her child against the wise woman
 
 9O 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.
 
 A PARABLE. 9! 
 
 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
 
 92 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 discon- 
 solate-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 dis-
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 93 
 
 appointment, that she had mistaken. Full of com- 
 passion 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.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AJOTWITHSTANDING the differences be- 
 tween 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 anything 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 anything whatever 
 belonging to a previous mood not even if it had 
 left her but a moment before, and had been so
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 95 
 
 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 never 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
 
 96 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 to 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
 
 A PARABLE. 97 
 
 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. 
 
 II
 
 98 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 It was a great hollow sphere, made of a substance 
 similar to that of the mirror which Rosamond had 
 broken, but differently compounded. That sub- 
 stance 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 wa? 
 born, into the hollow sphere. 
 
 What sort of 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 anything 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. </_) 
 
 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. 
 
 \Yalk 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 sus- 
 pended sphere under her feet, and she would have
 
 IOO 'i'HE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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,
 
 A PARABLE. IOI 
 
 and, just ere she awoke, 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 a third day, she was aware that a 
 naked child was seated beside her. But there was 
 something about the child that made her shudder.
 
 1O2 TUB WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 colour 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."
 
 A PARABLE. I 03 
 
 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, heed- 
 less, ugly, miserable, staring at her own toes. All 
 at once, the creature began to smile, but with such
 
 IO4 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. I OS 
 
 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 gar- 
 ments, 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 your- 
 self. I am going from home, and leave you in 
 charge of the house. Do just as I tell you till my 
 return." 
 
 She then crave her the same directions she had
 
 IOC) THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A S 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
 
 IOS THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 con- 
 ceited 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 con- 
 temptible ? 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
 
 A PARABLE. 109 
 
 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 tlic realm 
 shall be brought without a moments delay to the 
 palace. Whoever shall be found having done other- 
 wise shall straightway lose his head by the hand of 
 the public exccntioner." 
 
 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
 
 no THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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. / would be generous. / 
 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.
 
 A PARABLE. 1 I I 
 
 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 sec 
 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 
 honoured the home picture with one stare more.
 
 112 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 "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, insignifi- 
 cant 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 
 back-ground, this, to her present bodily eyes, 
 appeared to come forward and assume reality. At
 
 A PARABLE. 113 
 
 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 firccd her eyes upon 
 
 I
 
 114 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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
 
 A PARABLE. 115 
 
 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 ^ilso. 
 
 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.
 
 Il6 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 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 : 
 
 " If I stay here longer, I shall be miserable. It 
 is nothing better than slavery. The old witch 
 shows me horrible things in the day, to set me 
 dreaming horrible things in the night If I don't 
 run away, that frightful blue prison and the 
 disgusting girl will come back, and I shall go out 
 of my mind. How I do wish I could find the way 
 to the good king's palace ! I shall go and look at 
 the picture again if it be a picture as soon as 
 I've got my clothes on. The work can wait. It's 
 not my work. It's the old witch's, and she ought 
 to do it herself." 
 
 She jumped out of bed, and hurried on her
 
 A PARABLE. HJt 
 
 clothes. There was no wise woman to be seen, 
 and she hastened into the hall. There was the 
 picture, with the marble palace, and the procla- 
 mation shining in letters of gold upon its gates of 
 brass ! She stood before it and gazed and gazed ; 
 and all the time it kept growing upon her in some 
 strange way until at last she was fully persuaded 
 that it was no picture, but a real city, square, and 
 marble palace, seen through a framed opening in 
 the wall. She ran up to the frame, stepped over it, 
 felt the wind blow upon her cheek, heard the sound 
 of a closing door behind her, and was free. Free 
 was she ? with that creature inside her ? 
 
 The same moment a terrible storm of thunder 
 and lightning, wind and rain, came on. The 
 uproar was appalling. Agnes threw herself upon 
 the ground, hid her face in her hands, and there 
 lay until it was over. As soon as she felt the sun 
 shining on her, she rose. There was the city far
 
 FlS THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 away on the horizon ! Without once turning to 
 take a farewell look at the place she was leaving, 
 she set off, as fast as her feet would carry her, in 
 the direction of the city. So eager was she that 
 again and again she fell, but only to get up and 
 run on faster than before.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 '"F'HE shepherdess carried Rosamond home, gave 
 her a warm bath in the tub in which she 
 washed her linen, made her some bread-and-milk, 
 and after she had eaten it, put her to bed in 
 Agncs's crib, where she slept all the rest of that 
 day and all the following night. 
 
 \Yhcn at last she opened her eyes, it was to see 
 around her a far poorer cottage than the one she 
 had left very bare and uncomfortable indeed, she 
 might well have thought ; but she had come 
 through such troubles of late, in the way of hunger 
 and weariness and cold and fear, that she was not
 
 ]2O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 altogether in her ordinary mood of fault-finding, 
 and so was able to lie enjoying the thought that at 
 length she was safe, and going to be fed and kept 
 warm. The idea of doing anything in return for 
 shelter and food and clothes, did not, however, even 
 cross her mind. 
 
 But the shepherdess was one of that plentiful 
 number who can be wiser concerning other women's 
 children than concerning their own. Such will 
 often give you very tolerable hints as to how you 
 ought to manage your children, and will find fault 
 neatly enough with the system you are trying to 
 carry out ; but all their wisdom goes off in talking, 
 and there is none left for doing what they have 
 themselves said. There is one road talk never finds, 
 and that is the way into the talker's own hands and 
 feet And such never seem to know themselves 
 not even when they are reading about themselves 
 in print. Still, not being specially blinded in any
 
 A PARABLE. 121 
 
 direction but their -own, they can sometimes even 
 act with a little sense towards children who are not 
 theirs. They are affected with a sort of blindness 
 like that which renders some people incapable of 
 seeing except sideways. 
 
 She came up to the bed, looked at the princess, 
 and saw that she was better. But she did not like 
 her much. There was no mark of a princess about 
 her, and never had been since she began to run 
 alone. True, hunger had brought down her fat 
 cheeks, but it had not turned down her impudent 
 nose, or driven the sullcnness and greed from her 
 mouth. Nothing but the wise woman could do 
 that and not even she, without the aid of the 
 princess herself. So the shepherdess thought what 
 a poor substitute she had got for her own lovely 
 Agnes who was in fact equally repulsive, only in 
 a way to which she had got used ; for the sel- 
 fishness in her love had blinded her to the thin
 
 122 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 pinched nose and the mean self-satisfied mouth. 
 It was well for the princess, though, sad as it is to 
 say, that the shepherdess did not take to her, for 
 then she would most likely have only done her 
 harm instead of good. 
 
 " Now, my girl," sl\e said, "you must get up and 
 do something. We can't keep idle folk here." 
 
 " I'm not a folk," said Rosamond ; " I'm a 
 princess." 
 
 " A pretty princess with a nose like that ! And 
 all in rags too ! If you tell such stories, I shall 
 soon let you know what I think of you." 
 
 Rosamond then understood that the mere calling 
 herself a princess, without having anything to show 
 for it, was of no use. She obeyed and rose, for she 
 was hungry ; but she had to sweep the floor ere she 
 had anything to eat. 
 
 The shepherd came in to breakfast, and was 
 kinder than his wife. He took her up in his arms
 
 A PARABLE. 123 
 
 and would have kissed her ; but she took it as an 
 insult from a man whose hands smelt of tar, and 
 kicked and screamed with rage. The poor man, 
 finding he had made a mistake, set her down at 
 once. But to look at the two, one might well have 
 judged it condescension rather . than rudeness in 
 such a man to kiss such a child. He was tall, and 
 almost stately, with a thoughtful forehead, bright 
 eyes, eagle nose, and gentle mouth ; while the 
 princess was such as I have described her. 
 
 Not content with being set down and let alone, 
 she continued to storm and scold at the shepherd, 
 crying she was a princess, and would like to know 
 what right he had to touch her ! But he only 
 looked down upon her from the height of his tall 
 person with a benignant smile, regarding her as a 
 spoiled little ape whose mother had flattered her by 
 calling her a princess. 
 
 " Turn her out of doors, the ungrateful hussy ! "
 
 124 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 cried his wife. "With your bread and your milk 
 inside her ugly body, this is what she gives you for 
 it ! Troth, I'm paid for carrying home such an 
 ill-bred tramp in my arms ! My own poor angel 
 Agnes ! As if that ill-tempered toad were one 
 hair like her ! " 
 
 These words drove the princess beside herself ; 
 for those who are most given to abuse can least 
 endure it. With fists and feet and teeth, as was 
 her wont, she rushed at the shepherdess, whose 
 hand was already raised to deal her a sound box 
 on the ear, when a better appointed minister of 
 vengeance suddenly showed himself. Bounding in 
 at the cottage door came one of the sheep-dogs, 
 who was called Prince, and whom I shall not refer 
 to with a which, because he was a very superior 
 animal indeed, even for a sheep-dog, which is the 
 most intelligent of dogs : he flew at the princess, 
 knocked her down, and commenced shaking her so
 
 A PARABLE. 125 
 
 violently as to tear her miserable clothes to pieces. 
 Used, however, to mouthing little lambs, he took 
 care not to hurt her much, though for her good he 
 left her a blue nip or two, by way of letting her 
 imagine what biting might be. His master, 
 knowing he would not injure her, thought it better 
 not to call him off, and in half a minute he left her 
 of his own accord, and, casting a glance of indignant 
 rebuke behind him as he went, walked slowly to 
 the hearth, where he laid himself down with his tail 
 towards her. She rose, terrified almost to death, 
 and would have crept again into Agnes's crib for 
 refuge ; but the shepherdess cried 
 
 " Come, come, princess ! I'll have no skulking to 
 bed in the good daylight Go and clean your 
 master's Sunday boots there." 
 
 " I will not ! " screamed the princess, and ran 
 from the house. 
 
 " Prince ! " cried the shepherdess, and up jumped
 
 126 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 the dog, and looked in her face, wagging his 
 bushy tail. 
 
 " Fetch her back," she said, pointing to the door. 
 
 With two or three bounds Prince caught the 
 princess, again threw her down, and taking her by 
 her clothes dragged her back into the cottage, and 
 dropped her at his mistress* feet, where she lay like 
 a bundle of rags. 
 
 " Get up," said the shepherdess. 
 
 Rosamond got up, as pale as death. 
 
 " Go and clean the boots." 
 
 " I don't know how." 
 
 " Go and try. There are the brushes, and yonder 
 is the blacking pot." 
 
 Instructing her how to black boots, it came into 
 the thought of the shepherdess what a fine thing it 
 would be if she could teach this miserable little 
 wretch, so forsaken and ill-bred, to be a good, 
 well-behaved, respectable child. She was hardly
 
 A PARAI3I.F.. 127 
 
 the woman to do it, but everything well meant is a 
 help, and she had the wisdom to beg her husband 
 to place Prince under her orders for a while, and 
 not take him to the hill as usual, that he might help 
 her in getting the princess into order. 
 
 When her husband was gone, and his boots, with 
 the aid of her own finishing touches, at last quite 
 respectably brushed, the shepherdess told the 
 princess that she might go and play for a while, 
 only she must not go out of sight of the cottage 
 door. 
 
 The princess went right gladly, with the firm 
 intention, however, of getting out of sight by slow 
 degrees, and then at once taking to her heels. 
 But no sooner was she over the threshold than the 
 shepherdess said to the dog, " Watch her ; " and 
 out shot Prince. 
 
 The moment she saw him, Rosamond threw 
 herself on her face, trembling from head to foot.
 
 128 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 But the dog had no quarrel with her, and of the 
 violence against which he always felt bound to 
 protest in dog fashion, there was no sign in the 
 prostrate shape before him ; so he poked his nose 
 under her, turned her over, and began licking her 
 face and hands. When she saw that he meant to 
 be friendly, her love for animals, which had had no 
 indulgence for a long time now, came wide awake, 
 and in a little while they were romping and 
 rushing about, the best friends in the world. 
 
 Having thus seen one enemy, as she thought, 
 changed to a friend, she began to resume her former 
 plan, and crept cunningly farther and farther. At 
 length she came to a little hollow, and instantly 
 rolled down into it. Finding then that she was 
 out of sight of the cottage, she ran off at full speed. 
 
 But she had not gone more than a dozen paces 
 when she heard a growling rush behind her, and 
 the next instant was on the ground, with the dog
 
 A PARABLE. I2Q 
 
 standing over her, showing his teeth, and flaming 
 at her with his eyes. She threw her arms round 
 his neck, and immediately he licked her face, and 
 let her get up. But the moment she would have 
 moved a step farther from the cottage, there he 
 was in front of her, growling and showing his teeth. 
 She saw it was of no use, and went back with him. 
 
 Thus was the princess provided with a dog for a 
 private tutor just the right sort for her. 
 
 Presently the shepherdess appeared at the door 
 and called her. She would have disregarded the 
 summons, but Prince did his best to let her know 
 that, until she could obey herself, she must obey 
 him. So she went into the cottage, and there the 
 shepherdess ordered her to peel the potatoes for 
 dinner. She sulked and refused. Here Prince 
 could do nothing to help his mistress, but she had 
 not to go far to find another ally. 
 
 "Very well, Miss Princess!" she said ; "we shall 
 K
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 soon see how you like to go without when dinner- 
 time comes." 
 
 Now, the princess had very little foresight, and the 
 idea of future hunger would have moved her little ; 
 but happily, from her game of romps with Prince, 
 she had begun to be hungry already, and so the 
 threat had force. She took the knife and began to 
 peel the potatoes. 
 
 By slow degrees the princess improved a little. 
 A few more outbreaks of passion, and a few more 
 savage attacks from Prince, and she had learned to 
 try to restrain herself when she felt the passion 
 coming on ; while a few dinnerless afternoons 
 entirely opened her eyes to the necessity of working 
 in order to eat. Prince was her first, and Hunger 
 her second dog-counsellor. 
 
 But a still better thing was that she soon grew 
 very fond of Prince. Towards the gaining of her 
 affections, he had three advantages : first, his nature
 
 A PARABLE. IJJ 
 
 was inferior to hers ; next, he was a beast ; and last, 
 she was afraid of him ; for so spoiled was she that 
 she could more easily love what was below than 
 what was above her, and a beast than one of her 
 own kind, and indeed could hardly have ever come 
 to love anything much that she had not first learned 
 to fear, and the white teeth and flaming eyes of the 
 angry Prince were more terrible to her than any- 
 thing had yet been, except those of the wolf, which 
 she had now forgotten. Then, again, he was such a 
 delightful playfellow, that, so long as she neither 
 lost her temper, nor went against orders, she might 
 do almost anything she pleased with him. In fact, 
 such was his influence upon her, that she who had 
 scoffed at the wisest woman in the whole world, and 
 derided the wishes of her own father and mother, 
 came at length to regard this dog as a superior 
 being, and to look up to him as well as love him. 
 And this was best of all. 

 
 132 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 The improvement upon her, in the course of a 
 month, was plain. She had quite ceased to go into 
 passions, and had actually begun to take a little 
 interest in her work and try to do it well. 
 
 Still, the change was mostly an outside one. I 
 do not mean that she was pretending. Indeed she 
 had never been given to pretence of any sort. But ' 
 the change was not in her, only in her mood. A 
 second change of circumstances would have soon 
 brought a second change of behaviour; and so long 
 as that was possible, she continued the same sort 
 of person she had always been. But if she had 
 not gained much, a trifle had been gained for her : 
 a little quietness and order of mind, and hence a 
 somewhat greater possibility of the first idea of 
 right arising in it, whereupon she would begin to 
 see what a wretched creature she was, and must 
 continue until she herself was right. 
 
 Meantime the wise woman had been watchincr
 
 A PARABLE. 133 
 
 her when she least fancied it, and taking note of the 
 change that was passing upon her. Out of the 
 large eyes of a gentle sheep she had been watching 
 her a sheep that puzzled the shepherd ; for every 
 now and then she would appear in his flock, and he 
 would catch sight of her two or three times in a 
 day, sometimes for days together, yet he never saw 
 her when he looked for her, and never when he 
 counted the flock into the fold at night. He knew 
 she was not one of his ; but where could she come 
 from, and where could she go to ? For there was 
 no other flock within many miles, and he never 
 could get near enough to her to see whether or not 
 she was marked. Nor was Prince of the least use 
 to him for the unravelling of the mystery; for 
 although, as often as he told him to fetch the 
 strange sheep, he went bounding to her at once, it 
 was only to lie down at her feet. 
 
 At length, however, the wise woman had made
 
 134 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 up her mind, and after that the strange sheep no 
 longer troubled the shepherd. 
 
 As Rosamond improved, the shepherdess grew 
 kinder. She gave her all Agnes's clothes, and 
 began to treat her much more like a daughter. 
 Hence she had a great deal of liberty after the 
 little work required of her was over, and would 
 often spend hours at a time with the shepherd, 
 watching the sheep and the dogs, and learning a 
 little from seeing how Prince, and others as well, 
 managed their charge how they never touched 
 the sheep that did as they were told and turned 
 when they were bid, but jumped on a disobedient 
 flock, and ran along their backs, biting, and 
 barking, and half choking themselves with mouth- 
 fuls of their wool. 
 
 Then also she would play with the brooks, and 
 learn their songs, and build bridges over them. 
 And sometimes she would be seized with such
 
 A PARABLE. 135 
 
 delight of heart that she would spread out her 
 arms to the wind, and go rushing up the hill 
 till her breath left her, when she would tumble 
 down in the heather and lie there till it came back 
 again. 
 
 A noticeable change had by this time passed 
 also on her countenance. Her coarse, shapeless 
 mouth had begun to show a glimmer of lines and 
 curves about it, and the fat had not returned with 
 the roses to her cheeks, so that her eyes looked 
 larger than before ; while, more noteworthy still, 
 the bridge of her nose had grown higher, so that it 
 was less of the impudent, insignificant thing in- 
 herited from a certain great-grcat-great-grand- 
 mother, who had little else to leave her. For a 
 long time it had fitted her very well, for it was just 
 like her ; but now there was ground for alteration, 
 and already the granny who gave it her would not 
 have recognized it. It was growing a little likcr
 
 136 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 Prince's, and Prince's was a long, perceptive, 
 sagacious nose one that was seldom mistaken. 
 
 One day, about noon, while the sheep were 
 mostly lying down, and the shepherd, having left 
 them to the care of the dogs, was himself stretched 
 under the shade of a rock a little way apart, and 
 the princess sat knitting, with Prince at her feet, 
 lying in wait for a snap at a great fly for even he 
 had his follies Rosamond saw a poor woman 
 come toiling up the hill, but took little notice of 
 her until she was passing, a few yards off, when she 
 heard her utter the dog's name in a low voice. 
 
 Immediately on the summons, Prince started up 
 and followed her with hanging head, but gently 
 wagging tail. At first the princess thought he was 
 merely taking observations, and consulting with his 
 nose whether she was respectable or not, but she 
 soon saw that he was following her in meek 
 submission. Then she sprung to her feet and
 
 A PARABLE. 137 
 
 cried, " Prince ! Prince ! " But Prince only turned 
 his head and gave her an odd look, as if he were 
 trying to smile and could not. Then the princess 
 grew angry, and ran after him, shouting, " Prince, 
 come here directly." Again Prince turned his 
 head, but this time to growl and show his teeth. 
 
 The princess flew into one of her forgotten rages, 
 and picking up a stone, flung it at the woman. 
 Prince turned and darted at her, with fury in his 
 eyes, and his white teeth gleaming. At the awful 
 sight the princess turned also, and would have fled, ' 
 but he was upon her in a moment, and threw her 
 to the ground, and there she lay. 
 
 It was evening when she came to herself. A 
 cool twilight wind, that somehow seemed to come 
 all the way from the stars, was blowing upon her. 
 The poor woman and Prince, the shepherd and his 
 sheep, were all gone, and she was left alone with 
 the wind upon the heather.
 
 138 THE WISE WOMAN'. 
 
 She felt sad, weak, and, perhaps for the first time 
 in her life, a little ashamed. The violence of which 
 she had been guilty had vanished from her spirit, 
 and now lay in her memory with the calm morning 
 behind it, while in front the quiet dusky night was 
 now closing in the loud shame betwixt a double 
 peace. Between the two her passion looked ugly. 
 It pained her to remember. She felt it was hateful, 
 and hers. 
 
 But, alas, Prince was gone ! That horrid woman 
 had taken him away ! The fury rose again in her 
 heart, and raged until it came to her mind how 
 her dear Prince would have flown at her throat if 
 he had seen her in such a passion. The memory 
 calmed her, and she rose and went home. There, 
 perhaps, she would find Prince, for surely he could 
 never have been such a silly dog as to go away 
 altogether with a strange woman ! 
 
 She opened the door and went in. Dogs were
 
 A PARABLE. 139 
 
 asleep all about the cottage, it seemed to her, but 
 nowhere was Prince. She crept away to her little 
 bed, and cried herself asleep. 
 
 In the morning the shepherd and shepherdess 
 were indeed glad to find she had come home, for 
 they thought she had run away. 
 
 " Where is Prince ? " she cried, the moment she 
 waked. 
 
 " His mistress has taken him," answered the 
 shepherd. 
 
 " Was that woman his mistress ? " 
 
 " I fancy so. He followed her as if he had 
 known her all his life. I am very sorry to lose him, 
 though." 
 
 The poor woman had gone close past the rock 
 where the shepherd lay. He saw her coming, "and 
 thought of the strange sheep which had been 
 feeding beside him when he lay down. "Who can 
 she be?" he said to himself; but when he noted
 
 I4D THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 how Prince followed her, without even looking up 
 at him as he passed, he remembered how Prince 
 had come to him. And this was how : as he lay 
 in bed one fierce winter morning, just about to rise, 
 he heard the voice of a woman call to him through 
 the storm, " Shepherd, I have brought you a dog. 
 Be good to him. I will come again and fetch him 
 away." He dressed as quickly as he could, and 
 went to the door. It was half snowed up, but on 
 the top of the white mound before it stood Prince. 
 And now he had gone as mysteriously as he had 
 come, and he felt sad. 
 
 Rosamond was very sorry too, and hence when 
 
 f 
 
 she saw the looks of the shepherd and shepherdess, 
 she was able to understand them. And she tried 
 for a while to behave better to them because of 
 their sorrow. So the loss of the dog brought them 
 all nearer to each other.
 
 u 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A FTER the thunder-storm Agnes did not meet 
 with a single obstruction or misadventure. 
 Everybody was strangely polite, gave her whatever 
 she desired, and answered her questions, but asked 
 none in return, and looked all the time as if her 
 departure would be a relief. They were afraid, in 
 fact, from her appearance, lest she should tell them 
 that she was lost, when they would be bound, 
 on pain of public execution, to take her to the 
 palace. 
 
 But no sooner had she entered the city than 
 she saw it would hardly do to present herself as a
 
 142 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 lost child at the palace gates ; for how were the^' 
 to know that she was not an impostor, especially 
 since she really was one, having run away from the 
 wise woman ? So she wandered about looking at 
 everything until she was tired, and bewildered by 
 the noise and confusion all around her. The 
 wearier she got, the more was she pushed in every 
 direction. Having been used to a whole hill to 
 wander upon, she was very awkward in the crowded 
 streets, and often on the point of being run over by 
 the horses, which seemed to her to be going every 
 way like a frightened flock. She spoke to several 
 persons, but no one stopped to answer her ; and at 
 length her courage giving way, she felt lost indeed, 
 and began to cry. A soldier saw her, and asked 
 what was the matter. 
 
 " I've nowhere to go to," she sobbed. 
 
 "Where's your mother ? " asked the soldier. 
 
 " I don't know," answered Agnes. " I was
 
 A PARABLE. 143 
 
 carried off by an old woman, who then went away 
 and left me. I don't know where she is, or where 
 I am myself." 
 
 " Come," said the soldier, " this is a case for his 
 Majesty." 
 
 So saying he took her by the hand, led her to 
 the palace, and begged an audience of the king and 
 queen. The porter glanced at Agnes, immediately 
 admitted them, and showed them into a great 
 splendid room, where the king and queen sat every 
 day to review lost children, in the hope of one day 
 thus finding their Rosamond. But they were by 
 this time beginning to get tired of it. The moment 
 they cast their eyes upon Agnes, the queen threw 
 back her head, threw up her hands, and cried 
 " What a miserable, conceited, white-faced little 
 ape ! " and the king turned upon the soldier in 
 wrath, and cried, forgetting his own decree, "What 
 do you mean by bringing such a dirty, vulgar-
 
 144 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 looking, pert creature into my palace ? The dullest 
 soldier in my army could never for a moment 
 imagine a child like that, one hair's-breadth like the 
 lovely angel we lost ? " 
 
 " I humbly beg your Majesty's pardon," said the 
 soldier, " but what was I to do ? There stands 
 your Majesty's proclamation in gold letters on the 
 brazen gates of the palace." 
 
 " I shall have it taken down," said the king. 
 " Remove the child." 
 
 "Please your Majesty, what am I to do with 
 her ? " 
 
 " Take her home with you." 
 
 " I have six already, sire, and do not want her." 
 
 " Then drop her where you picked her up." 
 
 " If I do, sire, some one else will find her, and 
 bring her back to your Majesties." 
 
 " That will never do," said the king. " I cannot 
 bear to look at her."
 
 A PARABLE. 145 
 
 " For all her ugliness," said the queen, " she is 
 plainly lost, and so is our Rosamond." 
 
 " It may be only a pretence, to get into the 
 palace," said the king. 
 
 " Take her to the head scullion, soldier," said the 
 queen, "and tell her to make her useful. If she 
 should find out she has been pretending to be lost, 
 she must let me know." 
 
 The soldier was so anxious to get rid of her, that 
 he caught her up in his arms, hurried her from the 
 room, found his way to the scullery, and gave her, 
 trembling with fear, in charge to the head maid, 
 with the queen's message. 
 
 As it was evident that the queen had no favour 
 for her, the servants did as they pleased with her, 
 and often treated her harshly. Not one amongst 
 them liked her; nor was it any wonder, seeing that, 
 with every step she took from the wise woman's 
 house, she had grown more contemptible, for she 
 
 L
 
 146 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 had grown more conceited. Every civil answer 
 given her, she attributed to the impression she 
 made, not to the desire to get rid of her ; and ever}' 
 kindness, to approbation of her looks and speech, 
 instead of friendliness to a lonely child. Hence by 
 this time she was twice as odious as before ; for 
 whoever has had such severe treatment as the wise 
 woman gave her, and is not the better for it, always 
 grows worse than before. They drove her about,, 
 boxed her ears on the smallest provocation, laid 
 everything to her charge, called her all manner of 
 contemptuous names, jeered and scoffed at her 
 awkwardnesses, and made her life so miserable that 
 she was in a fair way to forget everything she had 
 learned, and know nothing but how to clean sauce- 
 pans and kettles. 
 
 They would not have been so hard upon her, 
 however, but for her irritating behaviour. She 
 dared not refuse to do as she was told, but she
 
 A PARABLE. 147 
 
 
 
 obeyed now with a purscd-up mouth, and now 
 with a contemptuous smile. The only thing that 
 sustained her was her constant contriving how to 
 get out of the painful position in which she found 
 herself. There is but one true way, however, of 
 getting out of any position we may be in, and that 
 is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit for 
 *a better : I need not say this was not the plan 
 upon which Agnes was cunning enough to fix. 
 
 She had soon learned from the talk around her 
 the reason of the proclamation which had brought 
 her hither. 
 
 " Was the lost princess so very beautiful ? " she- 
 said one day to the youngest of her fellow-servants. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " screamed the maid ; "she was just 
 the ugliest little toad you ever set eyes upon." 
 
 "What was she like ? " asked Agnes. 
 
 "She was about your size, and quite as ugly, 
 only not in the same way ; for she had red checks.
 
 148 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 and a cocked little nose, and the biggest, ugliest 
 mouth you ever saw." 
 
 Agnes fell a thinking. 
 
 "Is there a picture of her anywhere in the 
 palace ? " she asked. 
 
 " How should I know ? You can ask a house- 
 maid." 
 
 Agnes soon learned that there was one, and 
 contrived to get a peep of it. Then she was 
 certain of what she had suspected from the 
 description given of her, namely, that she was the 
 same she had seen in the picture at the wise 
 woman's house. The conclusion followed, that the 
 lost princess must be staying with her father and 
 mother, for assuredly in the picture she wore one of 
 her frocks. 
 
 She went to the head scullion, and, with humble 
 manner but proud heart, begged her to procure for 
 her the favour of a word with the queen.
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 149 
 
 "A likely thing indeed!" was the answer, 
 accompanied by a resounding box on the ear. 
 
 She tried the head cook next, but with no better 
 success, and so was driven to her meditations again, 
 the result of which was that she began to drop 
 hints that she knew something about the princess. 
 This came at length to the queen's ears, and she 
 sent for her. 
 
 Absorbed in her own selfish ambitions, Agnes 
 never thought of the risk to which she was 
 about to expose her parents, but told the queen 
 that in her wanderings she had caught sight of just 
 such a lovely creature as she described the princess, 
 only dressed like a peasant saying that, if the 
 king would permit her to go and look for her, she 
 had little doubt of bringing her back safe and 
 sound within a few weeks. 
 
 But although she spoke the truth, she had such a 
 look of cunning on her pinched face that the queen
 
 I5O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 could not possibly trust her, but believed that she 
 made the proposal merely to get away, and have 
 money given her for her journey. Still there was a 
 chance, and she would not say anything until she 
 had consulted the king. 
 
 Then they had Agnes up before the lord 
 chancellor, who, after much questioning of her, 
 arrived at last, he thought, at some notion of the 
 part of the country described by her that was, if 
 she spoke the truth, which, from her looks and 
 behaviour, he also considered entirely doubtful. 
 Thereupon she was ordered back to the kitchen, 
 and a band of soldiers, under a clever lawyer, sent 
 out to search every foot of the supposed region. 
 They were commanded not to return until they 
 brought with them, bound hand and foot, such a 
 shepherd-pair as that of which they received a full 
 description. 
 
 And now Agnes was worse off than before. For
 
 A PARABLE. 15! 
 
 to her other miseries was added the fear of what 
 would befall her when it was discovered that the 
 persons of whom they were in quest, and whom she 
 was certain they must find, were her own father and 
 mother. 
 
 By this time the king and queen were so tired of 
 seeing lost children, genuine or pretended for they 
 cared for no child any longer than there seemed a 
 chance of its turning out their child that, with 
 this new hope, which, however poor and vague at 
 first, soon began to grow upon such imaginations 
 as they had, they commanded the proclamation to 
 be taken down from the palace gates, and directed 
 the various sentries to admit no child whatever, 
 lost or found, be the reason or pretence what it 
 might, until further orders. 
 
 "I'm sick of children!" said the king to his 
 secretary, as he finished dictating the direction.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A FTER Prince was gone, the princess, by de- 
 grees, fell back into some of her old bad ways, 
 from which only the presence of the dog, not her 
 own betterment, had kept her. She never grew 
 nearly so selfish again, but she began to let her 
 angry old self lift up its head once more, until by 
 and by she grew so bad that the sheperdess de- 
 clared she should not stop in the house a day 
 longer, for she was quite. unendurable. 
 
 " It is all very well for you, husband," she said, 
 " for you haven't her all day about you, and only 
 see the best of her. But if you had her in work
 
 A PARABLE. 153 
 
 instead of play hours, you would like her no better 
 than I do. And then it's not her ugly passions 
 only, but when she's in one of her tantrums, its im- 
 possible to get any work out of her. At such 
 times she's just as obstinate as as as " 
 
 She was going to say "as Agnes," but the 
 feelings of a mother overcame her, and she could 
 not utter the words. 
 
 " In fact," she said instead, " she makes my life 
 miserable." 
 
 The shepherd felt he had no right to tell his wife 
 she must submit to have her life made miserable, 
 and therefore, although he was really much at- 
 tached to Rosamond, he would not interfere ; and 
 the sheperdess told her she must look out for 
 another place. 
 
 The princess was, however, this much better 
 than before, even in respect of her passions, that 
 they were not quite so bad, and after one was over,
 
 154 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 she was really ashamed of it. But not once, ever 
 since the departure of Prince, had she tried to 
 check the rnsh of the evil temper when it came 
 upon her. She hated it when she was out of it, 
 and that was something ; but while she was in it, 
 she went full swing with it, wherever the prince of 
 the power of it pleased to carry her. Nor was this 
 all : although she might by this time have known 
 well enough that as soon as she was out of it she 
 was certain to be ashamed of it, she would yet 
 justify it to herself with twenty different arguments 
 that looked very good at the time, but would have 
 looked very poor indeed afterwards, if then she had 
 ever remembered them. 
 
 She was not sorry to leave the shepherd's cot- 
 tage, for she felt certain of soon finding her way 
 back to her father and mother ; and she would, 
 indeed, have set out long before, but that her foot 
 had somehow got hurt when Prince gave her his
 
 A PARABLE. 155 
 
 last admonition, and she had never since been able 
 for long walks, which she sometimes blamed as 
 the cause of her temper growing worse. But if 
 people are good-tempered only when they are 
 comfortable, what thanks have they? Her foot 
 was now much better ; and as soon as the shep- 
 herdess had thus spoken, she resolved to set out 
 at once, and work or beg her way home. At the 
 moment she was quite unmindful of what she owed 
 the good people, and, indeed, was as yet incapable 
 of understanding a tenth part of her obligation to 
 them. So she bade them good-bye without a tear, 
 and limped her way down the hill, leaving the 
 shepherdess weeping, and the shepherd looking 
 very grave. 
 
 When she reached the valley, she followed the 
 course of the stream, knowing only that it would 
 lead her away from the hill where the sheep fed, 
 into richer lands where were farms and cattle.
 
 156 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 Rounding one of the roots of the hill, she saw 
 before her a poor woman walking slowly along the 
 road with a burden of heather upon her back, and 
 presently passed her, but had gone only a few 
 paces farther when she heard her calling after her 
 in a kind old voice - 
 
 " Your shoe-tie is loose, my child." 
 
 But Rosamond was growing tired, for her foot 
 had become painful, and so she was cross, and 
 neither returned answer, nor paid heed to the 
 warning. For when we are cross, all our other 
 faults grow busy, and poke up their ugly heads 
 like maggots, and the princess's old dislike to 
 doing anything that came to her with the least air 
 of advice about it returned in full force. 
 
 " My child," said the woman again, " if you don't 
 fasten your shoe-tie, it will make you fall." 
 
 "Mind your own business," said Rosamond, 
 without even turning her head, and had not gone
 
 A PARABLE. 157 
 
 more than three steps when she fell flat on her face 
 on the path. She tried to get up, but the effort 
 forced from her a scream, for she had sprained the 
 ankle of the foot that was already lame. 
 
 The old woman was by her side instantly. 
 
 " Where are you hurt, child ? " she asked, throwing 
 down her burden and kneeling beside her. 
 
 " Go away," screamed Rosamond. " You made 
 me fall, you bad woman ! " 
 
 The woman made no reply, but began to feel 
 her joints, and soon discovered the sprain. Then, 
 in spite of Rosamond's abuse, and the violent 
 pushes and even kicks she gave her, she took the 
 hurt ankle in her hands, and stroked and pressed 
 it, gently kneading it, as it were, with her thumbs, 
 as if coaxing every particle of the muscles into its 
 right place. Nor had she done so long before Rosa 
 .mond lay still. At length she ceased, and said : 
 
 " Now, my child, you may get up."
 
 158 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 " I can't get up, and I'm not your child," cried 
 Rosamond. " Go away." 
 
 Without another word the woman left her, took 
 up her burden, and continued her journey. 
 
 In a little while Rosamond tried to get up, and 
 not only succeeded, but found she could walk, and, 
 indeed, presently discovered that her ankle and foot 
 also were now perfectly well. 
 
 " I wasn't much hurt after all," she said to her- 
 self, nor sent a single grateful thought after the 
 poor woman, whom she speedily passed once more 
 upon the road without even a greeting. 
 
 Late in the afternoon she came to a spot where 
 the path divided into two, and was taking the one 
 she liked the look of better, when she started at 
 the sound of the poor woman's voice, whom she 
 thought she had left far behind, again calling her. 
 She looked round, and there she was, toiling under 
 her load of heather as before.
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 159 
 
 "You are taking the wrong turn, child," she 
 cried. 
 
 " How can you tell that ?" said Rosamond. " You 
 know nothing about where I want to go." 
 
 " I know that road will take you where you 
 don't want to go," said the woman. 
 
 " I shall know when I get there, then," returned 
 Rosamond, " and no thanks to you." 
 
 She set off running. The woman took the other 
 path, and was soon out of sight. 
 
 By and by, Rosamond found herself in the midst 
 of a peat-moss a flat, lonely, dismal, black country. 
 She thought, however, that the road would soon 
 lead her across to the other side of it among the 
 farms, and went on without anxiety. But the 
 stream, which had hitherto been her guide, had now 
 vanished ; and when it began to grow dark, 
 Rosamond found that she could no longer di-;- 
 tinguish the track. She turned, therefore, but only
 
 IDO THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 to find that the same darkness covered it behind 
 as well as before. Still she made the attempt to 
 go back by keeping as direct a line as she could, 
 for the path was straight as an arrow. But she 
 could not see enough even to start her in a line, 
 and she had not gone far before she found herself 
 hemmed in, apparently on every side, by ditches 
 and pools of black, dismal, slimy water. And now 
 it was so dark that she could see nothing more 
 than the gleam of a bit of clear sky now and then 
 in the water. Again and again she stepped knee- 
 deep in black mud, and once tumbled down in the 
 shallow edge of a terrible pool ; after which she 
 gave up the attempt to escape the meshes of the 
 watery net, stood still, and began to cry bitterly, 
 despairingly. She saw now that her unreasonable 
 anger had made her foolish as well as rude, and 
 felt that she was justly punished for her wickedness 
 to the poor woman who had been so friendly to
 
 A PARABLE. l6l 
 
 her. What would Prince think of her, if he knew ? 
 She cast herself on the ground, hungry, and cold, 
 and weary. 
 
 Presently, she thought she saw long creatures 
 come heaving out of the black pools. A toad 
 jumped upon her, and she shrieked, and sprang to 
 her feet, and would have run away headlong, when 
 she spied in the distance a faint glimmer. She 
 thought it was a Will-o'-the-wisp. What could he 
 be after ? Was he looking for her ? She dared 
 not run, lest he should see and pounce upon her. 
 The light came nearer, and grew brighter and 
 larger. Plainly, the little fiend was looking for her 
 he would torment her. After many twistings and 
 turnings among the pools, it can.e straight towards 
 her, and she would have shrieked, but that terror 
 made her dumb. 
 
 It came nearer and nearer, and lo ! it was borne 
 by a dark figure, with a burden on its back : it was 
 
 M
 
 1 62 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 the poor woman, and no demon, that was looking 
 for her! She gave a scream of joy, fell down 
 weeping at her feet, and clasped her knees. Then 
 the poor woman threw away her burden, laid down 
 her lantern, took the princess up in her arms, folded 
 her cloak around her, and having taken up her 
 lantern again, carried her slowly and carefully 
 through the midst of the black pools, winding 
 hither and thither. All night long she carried her 
 thus, slowly and wearily, until at length the dark- 
 ness grew a little thinner, an uncertain hint of 
 light came from the east, and the poor woman, 
 stopping on the brow of a little hill, opened her 
 cloak, and set the princess down. 
 
 " I can carry you no farther," she said. " Sit 
 there on the grass till the light comes. I will 
 stand here by you." 
 
 Rosamond had been asleep. Now she rubbed 
 her eyes and looked, but it was too dark to see
 
 A PARABLE. 163 
 
 anything more than that there was a sky over her 
 head. Slowly the light grew, until she could see 
 the form of the poor woman standing in front of 
 her ; and as it went on growing, she began to 
 think she had seen her somewhere before, till all 
 at once she thought of the wise woman, and saw it 
 must be she. Then she was so ashamed that she 
 bent down her head, and could look at her no 
 longer. But the poor woman spoke, and the voice 
 was that of the wise woman, and every word went 
 deep into the heart of the princess. 
 
 " Rosamond," she said, " all this time, ever since 
 I carried you from your father's palace, I have 
 been doing what I could to make you a lovely 
 creature : ask yourself how far I have succeeded." 
 
 All her past story, since she found herself first 
 under the wise woman's cloak, arose, and glided 
 past the inner eyes of the princess, and she 
 saw, and in a measure understood it all. But
 
 164 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 she sat with her eyes on the ground, and made no 
 sign. 
 
 Then said the wise woman : 
 
 " Below there is the forest which surrounds my 
 house. I am going home. If you please to come 
 there to me, I will help you, in a way I could not 
 do now, to be good and lovely. I will wait you 
 there all day, but if you start at once, you may be 
 there long before noon. I shall have your break- 
 fast waiting for you. One thing more : the beasts 
 have not yet all gone home to their holes ; but I 
 give you my word, not one will touch you so long 
 as you keep coming nearer to my house." 
 
 She ceased. Rosamond sat waiting to hear 
 something more ; but nothing came. She looked 
 up ; she was alone. 
 
 Alone once more ! Always being left alone, 
 because she would not yield to what was right ! 
 Oh, how safe she had felt under the wise woman's
 
 A PARABLE. 165 
 
 cloak ! She had indeed been good to her, and she 
 had in return behaved like one of the hyaenas of 
 the awful wood ! What a wonderful house it was 
 she lived in ! And again all her own story came 
 up into her brain from her repentant heart 
 
 " Why didn't she take me with her ? " she said. 
 " I would have gone gladly." And she wept. But 
 
 her own conscience told her that, in the very 
 
 i 
 middle of her shame and desire to be good, she had 
 
 returned no answer to the words of the wise 
 woman ; she had sat like a tree-stump, and done 
 nothing. She tried to say there was nothing to be 
 done ; but she knew at once that she could have 
 told the wise woman she had been very wicked, 
 and asked her to take her with her. Now there was 
 nothing to be done. 
 
 "Nothing to be done!" said her conscience. 
 " Cannot you rise, and w'alk down the hill, and 
 through the wood ? "
 
 l66 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 " But the wild beasts ! " 
 
 " There it is ! You don't believe the wise woman 
 yet ! Did she not tell you the beasts would not 
 touch you ? " 
 
 " But they are so horrid ! " 
 
 " Yes, they are ; but it would be far better to be 
 eaten up alive by them than live on such a worth- 
 less creature as you are. Why, you're not fit to be 
 thought about by any but bad ugly creatures." 
 
 This was how herself talked to her.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A LL at once she jumped to her feet, and ran at 
 full speed down the hill and into the wood. 
 She heard howlings and ycllings on all sides of her, 
 but she ran straight on, as near as she could judge. 
 Her spirits rose as she ran. Suddenly she saw 
 before her, in the dusk of the thick wood, a group 
 of some dozen wolves and hyaenas, standing all 
 together right in her way, with their green eyes 
 fixed upon her staring. She faltered one step, then 
 bethought her of what the wise woman had 
 promised, and keeping straight on, dashed right 
 into the middle of them. They fled howling, as if
 
 1 68 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 she had struck them with fire. She was no more 
 afraid after that, and ere the sun was up she was 
 out of the wood and upon the heath, which no bad 
 thing could step upon and live. With the first 
 peep of the sun above the horizon, she saw the 
 little cottage before her, and ran as fast as she 
 could run towards it. When she came near it, she 
 saw that the door was open, and ran straight into 
 the outstretched arms of the wise woman. 
 
 The wise woman kissed her and stroked her hair, 
 set her down by the fire, and gave her a bowl of 
 bread and milk. 
 
 When she had eaten it, she drew her before her 
 where she sat, and spoke to her thus : 
 
 " Rosamond, if you would be a blessed creature 
 instead of a mere wretch, you must submit to be 
 tried." 
 
 " Is that something terrible ? " asked the princess, 
 turning white.
 
 A PARABLE. l6g 
 
 " No, my child ; but it is something very difficult 
 to come well out of. Nobody who has not been 
 tried knows how difficult it is ; but whoever has 
 come well out of it, and those who do not overcome 
 never do come out of it, always looks back with 
 horror, not on what she has come through, but on 
 the very idea of the possibility of having failed, 
 and being still the same miserable creature as 
 before." 
 
 " You will tell me what it is before it begins ? " 
 said the princess. 
 
 " I will not tell you exactly. But I will tell you 
 some things to help you. One great danger is that 
 perhaps you will think you are in it before it has 
 really begun, and say to yourself, ' Oh ! this is 
 really nothing to me. It may be a trial to some, 
 but for me I am sure it is not worth mentioning.' 
 And then, before you know, it will be upon you, 
 and you will fail utterly and shamefully."
 
 I7O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 " I will be very, very careful," said the princess. 
 " Only don't let me be frightened." 
 
 " You shall "not be frightened, except it be your 
 own doing. You are already a brave girl, and 
 there is no occasion to try you more that way. I 
 saw how you rushed into the middle of the ugly 
 creatures ; and as they ran from you, so will all 
 kinds of evil things, as long as you keep them 
 outside of you, and do not open the cottage of your 
 heart to let them in. I will tell you something 
 more about what you will have to go through. 
 
 " Nobody can be a real princess do not imagine 
 you have yet been anything more than a mock one 
 until she is a princess over herself, that is, until, 
 when she finds herself unwilling to do the thing 
 that is right, she makes herself do it. So long as 
 any mood she is in makes her do the thing she will 
 be sorry for when that mood is over, she is a slave t 
 and no princess. A princess is able to do what is
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 right even should she unhappily be in a mood that 
 would make another unable to do it. For instance, 
 if you should be cross and angry, you are not a 
 whit the less bound to be just, yes, kind even a 
 thing most difficult in such a mood though ease 
 itself in a good mood, loving and sweet. Whoever 
 does what she is bound to do, be she the dirtiest 
 little girl in the street, is a princess, worshipful, 
 honourable. Nay, more ; her might goes farther 
 than she could send it, for if she act so, the evil 
 mood will wither and die, and leave her loving and 
 clean. Do you understand me, dear Rosamond ? " 
 
 As she spoke, the wise woman laid her hand on 
 her head, and looked oh, so lovingly! into her 
 eyes. 
 
 " I am not sure," said the princess, humbly. 
 
 " Perhaps you will understand me better if I say 
 it just comes to this, that you must not do what is 
 wrong, however much you arc inclined to do it, and
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 you must do what is right, however much you are 
 disinclined to do it." 
 
 " I understand that," said the princess. 
 
 "I am going, then, to put you in one of the 
 mood-chambers of which I have many in the house. 
 Its mood will come upon you, and you will have to 
 deal with it." 
 
 She rose and took her by the hand. The princess 
 trembled a little, but never thought of resisting. 
 
 The wise woman led her into the great hall with 
 the pictures, and through a door at the farther end, 
 opening upon another large hall, which was 
 circular, and had doors close to each other all 
 round it. Of these she opened one, pushed the 
 princess gently in, and closed it behind her. 
 
 The princess found herself in her old nursery. 
 Her little white rabbit came to meet her in a 
 lumping canter as if his back were going to tumble 
 over his head. Her nurse, in her rocking-chair by
 
 A PARABLE. 173 
 
 the chimney corner, sat just as she had used. The 
 fire burned brightly, and on the table were many of 
 her wonderful toys, on which, however, she now 
 looked with some contempt. Her nurse did not 
 seem at all surprised to see her, any more than if 
 the princess had but just gone from the room and 
 returned again. 
 
 " Oh ! how different I am from what I used to 
 be ! " thought the princess to herself, looking from 
 her toys to her nurse. " The wise woman has done 
 me so much good already! I will go and see 
 mamma at once, and tell her I am very glad to be 
 at home again, and very sorry I was so naughty." 
 
 She went towards the door. 
 
 "Your queen-mamma, princess, cannot see you 
 now," said her nurse. 
 
 " I have yet to learn that it is my part to take 
 orders from a servant," said the princess, with 
 temper and dignity.
 
 174 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, princess." returned her 
 liurse, politely ; " but it is my duty to tell you that 
 your queen-mamma is at this moment engaged. 
 She is alone with her most intimate friend, the 
 Princess of the Frozen Regions." 
 
 "I shall see for myself," returned the princess, 
 bridling, and walked to the door. 
 
 Now little bunny, leap-frogging near the door, 
 happened that moment to get about her feet, just 
 .as she was going to open it, so that she tripped and 
 fell against it, striking her forehead a good blow. 
 She caught up the rabbit in a rage, and, crying, " It 
 is all your fault, you ugly old wretch ! " threw it 
 with violence in her nurse's face. 
 
 Her nurse caught the rabbit, and held it to her 
 face, as if seeking to sooth its fright. But the 
 rabbit looked very limp and odd, and, to her 
 amazement, Rosamond presently saw that the 
 thing was no rabbit, but a pocket-handkerchief.
 
 A PARABLE. 175 
 
 The next moment she removed it from her face, 
 and Rosamond beheld not her nurse, but the wise* 
 woman standing on her own hearth, while she 
 herself stood by the door leading from the cottage 
 into the hall. 
 
 "First trial a failure," said the wise woman 
 quietly. 
 
 Overcome with shame, Rosamond ran to her, fell 
 down on her knees, and hid her face in her dress. 
 
 " Need I say anything ? " said the wise woman, 
 stroking her hair. 
 
 " No, no," cried the princess. " I am horrid." 
 
 " You know now the kind of thing you have to 
 meet : are you ready to try again ? " 
 
 "May I try again ?" cried the princess, jumping up. 
 " I'm ready. I do not think I shall fail this time." 
 
 " The trial will be harder." 
 
 Rosamond drew in her breath, and set her teeth. 
 The wise woman looked at her pitifully, but took
 
 176 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 her by the hand, led her to the round hall, opened 
 the same door, and closed it after her. 
 
 The princess expected to find herself again in 
 the nursery, but in the wise woman's house no one 
 ever has the same trial twice. She was in a 
 beautiful garden, full of blossoming trees and the 
 loveliest roses and lilies. A lake was in the middle 
 of it, with a tiny boat. So delightful was it that 
 Rosamond forgot all about how or why she had 
 come there, and lost herself in the joy of the 
 flowers and the trees and the water. Presently 
 came the shout of a child, merry and glad, and 
 from a clump of tulip-trees rushed a lovely little 
 boy, with his arms stretched out to her. She was 
 charmed at the sight, ran to meet him, caught him 
 up in her arms, kissed him, and could hardly let 
 him go again. But the moment she set him down 
 he ran from her towards the lake, looking back as 
 he ran, and crying " Come, come."
 
 A PARABLE. I 77 
 
 She followed. He made straight for the boat, 
 clambered into it, and held out his hand to help 
 her in. Then he caught up the little boat-hook, 
 and pushed away from the shore : there was a great 
 white flower floating a few yards off, and that was 
 the little fellow's goal. But, alas ! no sooner had 
 Rosamond caught sight of it, huge and glowing as 
 a harvest moon, than she felt a great desire to have 
 it herself. The boy, however, was in the bows of 
 the boat, and caught it first. It had a long stem, 
 reaching down to the bottom of the water, and for 
 a moment he tugged at it in vain, but at last it 
 gave way so suddenly, that he tumbled back with 
 the flower into the bottom of the boat. Then 
 Rosamond, almost wild at the danger it was in as 
 he struggled to rise, hurried to save it, but somehow 
 between them it came in pieces, and all its petals 
 of fretted silver were scattered about the boat. 
 When the boy got up, and saw the ruin his com- 
 N
 
 178 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 panion had occasioned, he burst into tears, and 
 having the long stalk of the flower still in his hand, 
 struck her with it across the face. It did not hurt 
 her much, for he was a very little fellow, but it was 
 wet and slimy. She tumbled rather than rushed 
 at him, seized him in her arms, tore him from his 
 frightened grasp, and flung him into the water. 
 His head struck on the boat as he fell, and he sank 
 at once to the bottom, where he lay looking up at 
 her with white face and open eyes. 
 
 The moment she saw the consequences of her 
 deed she was filled with horrible dismay. She 
 tried hard to reach down to him through the water, 
 but it was far deeper than it looked, and she could 
 not. Neither could she get her eyes to leave the 
 white face : its eyes fascinated and fixed hers ; and 
 there she lay leaning over the boat and staring at 
 the death she had made. But a voice crying, 
 "Ally ! Ally!" shot to her heart, and, springing to
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 '79 
 
 her feet she saw a lovely lady come running down 
 the grass to the brink of the water with her hair 
 flying about her head. 
 
 " Where is my Ally ? " she shrieked. 
 
 But Rosamond could not answer, and only stared 
 at the lady, as she had before stared at her drowned 
 boy. 
 
 Then the lady caught sight of the dead thing at 
 the bottom of the water, and rushed in, and, plung- 
 ing down, struggled and groped until she reached 
 it. Then she rose and stood up with the dead 
 body of her little son in her arms, his head hanging 
 back, and the water streaming from him. 
 
 " See what you have made of him, Rosamond ! " 
 she said, holding the body out to her ; "and this is 
 your second trial, and also a failure." 
 
 The dead child melted away from her arms, and 
 there she stood, the wise woman, on her own 
 hearth, while Rosamond found herself beside the
 
 I SO THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 little well on the floor of the cottage, with one arm 
 wet up to the shoulder. She threw herself on the 
 heather-bed and wept from relief and vexation 
 both. 
 
 The wise woman walked out of the cottage, shut 
 the door, and left her alone. Rosamond was 
 sobbing, so that she did not hear her go. When, 
 at length she looked up, and saw that the wise 
 woman was gone, her misery returned afresh and 
 tenfold, and she wept and wailed. The hours 
 passed, the shadows of evening began to fall, and 
 the wise woman entered
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 C HE went straight to the bed, and, taking Rosa- 
 mond in her arms, sat down with her by the fire. 
 
 " My poor child ! " she said. - " Two terrible 
 failures ! And the more the harder ! They get 
 stronger and stronger. What is to be done ? " 
 
 " Couldn't you help me?" said Rosamond pitc- 
 ously. 
 
 " Perhaps I could, no\v you ask me," answered 
 the wise woman. " When you are ready to try 
 again, we shall see." 
 
 " I am very tired of myself," said the princess. 
 " But I can't rest till I try again."
 
 1 82 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 " That is the only way to get rid of your weary, 
 shadowy self, and find your strong, true self. 
 Come, my child ; I will help you all I can, for now 
 I can help you." 
 
 Yet again she led her to the same door, and 
 seemed to the princess to send her yet again alone 
 into the room. She was in a forest, a place half 
 wild, half tended. The trees were grand, and full 
 of the loveliest birds, of all glowing gleaming, and 
 radiant colours, which, unlike the brilliant birds we 
 know in our world, sang deliciously, every one 
 according to his colour. The trees were not at all 
 crowded, but their leaves were so thick, and their 
 boughs spread so far, that it was only here and 
 there a sunbeam could get straight through. All 
 the gentle creatures of a forest were there, but no 
 creatures that killed, not even a weasel to kill the 
 rabbits, or a beetle to eat the snails out of their 
 striped shells. As to the butterflies, words would
 
 A PARABLE. 183 
 
 but wrong them if they tried to tell how gorgeous 
 they were. The princess's delight was so great 
 that she neither laughed nor ran, but walked about 
 with a solemn countenance and stately step. 
 
 " But where are the flowers? " she said to herself 
 at length. 
 
 They were nowhere. Neither on the high trees, 
 nor on the few shrubs that grew here and there 
 
 amongst them, were there any blossoms ; and in 
 the grass that grew everywhere there was not a 
 single flower to be seen. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Rosamond again to herself, 
 "where all the birds and butterflies are living 
 flowers, we can do without the other sort." 
 
 Still she could not help feeling that flowers were 
 wanted to make the beauty of the forest complete. 
 
 Suddenly she came out on a little open glade ; 
 and there, on the root of a great oak, sat the 
 loveliest little girl, with her lap full of flowers of all
 
 184 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 colours, but of such kinds as Rosamond had never 
 before seen. She was playing with them burying 
 her hands in them, tumbling them about, and every 
 now and then picking one from the rest, and throw- 
 ing it away. All the time she never smiled, except 
 with her eyes, which were as full as they could hold 
 of the laughter of the spirit a laughter which in 
 this world is never heard, only sets the eyes alight 
 with a liquid shining. Rosamond drew nearer, for 
 the wonderful creature would have drawn a tiger 
 to her side, and tamed him on the way. A few 
 yards from her, she came upon one of her cast- 
 away flowers and stooped to pick it up, as well she 
 might where none grew save in her own longing. 
 But to her amazement she found, instead of a 
 flower thrown away to wither, one fast rooted and 
 quite at home. She left it, and went to another ; 
 but it also was fast in the soil, and growing com- 
 fortably in the warm grass. What could it mean ?
 
 A PARABLE. 185 
 
 One after another she tried, until at length she was 
 satisfied that it was the same with every flower the 
 little girl threw from her lap. 
 
 She watched then until she saw her throw one, 
 and instantly bounded to the spot. But the flower 
 had been quicker than she : there it grew, fast fixed 
 in the earth, and, she thought, looked at her 
 roguishly. Something evil moved in her, and she 
 plucked it 
 
 " Don't ! don't ! " cried the child. " My flowers 
 cannot live in your hands." 
 
 Rosamond looked at the flower. It was withered 
 already. She threw it from her, offended. The 
 child rose, with difficulty keeping her lapful to- 
 gether, picked it up, carried it back, sat down again, 
 spoke to it, kissed it, sang to it oh ! such a sweet, 
 childish little song! the princess never could recall 
 a word of it and threw it away. Up rose its little 
 head, and there it was, busy growing again !
 
 THK WISE WOMAN. 
 
 Rosamond's bad temper soon gave way : the 
 beauty and sweetness of the child had overcome it ; 
 and, anxious to make friends with her, she drew 
 near, and said : 
 
 " Won't you give me a little flower, please, you 
 beautiful child ? " 
 
 " There they are; they are all for you," answered 
 the child, pointing with her outstretched arm and 
 forefinger all round. 
 
 " But you told me, a minute ago, not to touch 
 them." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, I did." 
 
 " They can't be mine, if I'm not to touch them." 
 
 " If, to call them yours, you must kill them, then 
 they are not yours, and never, never can be yours. 
 They are nobody's when they are dead." 
 
 " But you don't kill them." 
 
 " I don't pull them ; I throw them away. I live 
 them."
 
 A PARABLE. 187 
 
 " How is it that you make them grow ? " 
 
 " I say, ' You darling ! ' and throw it away, and 
 there it is." 
 
 " Where do you get them ? " 
 
 " In my lap." 
 
 " I wish you would let me throw one away." 
 
 " Have you got any in your lap ? Let me sec." 
 
 " No ; I have none." 
 
 " Then you can't throw one away, if you haven't 
 got one." 
 
 "You are mocking me!" cried the princess. 
 
 " I am not mocking you," said the child, looking 
 her full in the face, with reproach in her large blue 
 eyes. 
 
 " Oh, that's where the flowers come from ! " said 
 the princess to herself, the moment she saw them, 
 hardly knowing what she meant. 
 
 Then the child rose as if hurt, and quickly threw 
 iway all the flowers she had in her lap, but one by
 
 1 88 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 one, and without any sign of anger. When they 
 were all gone, she stood a moment, and then, in a 
 kind of chanting cry, called, two or three times, 
 "Peggy! Peggy! Pc-gy!" 
 
 A low, glad cry, like the whinny of a horse, 
 answered, and, presently, out of the wood on the 
 opposite side of the glade, came gently trotting the 
 loveliest little snow-white pony, with great shining 
 blue wings, half-lifted from his shoulders. Straight 
 towards the little girl, neither hurrying nor linger- 
 ing, he trotted with light elastic tread. 
 
 Rosamond's love for animals broke into a perfect 
 passion of delight at the vision. She rushed to 
 meet the pony with such haste, that, although 
 clearly the best trained animal under the sun, he 
 started back, plunged, reared, and struck out with 
 his fore feet ere he had time to observe what sort of 
 a creature it was that had so startled him. When 
 he perceived it was a little girl, he dropped instantly
 
 A PARABLE. 189 
 
 upon all-fours, and content with avoiding her, re- 
 sumed his quiet trot in the direction of his mistress. 
 Rosamond stood gazing after him in miserable dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 When he reached the child, he laid his head 
 on her shoulder, and she put her arm up round 
 his neck ; and after she had talked to him a 
 little, he turned and came trotting back to the 
 princess. 
 
 Almost beside herself with joy, she began caress- 
 ing him in the rough way which, notwithstanding 
 her love for them, she was in the habit of using 
 with animals ; and she was not gentle enough, in 
 herself even, to see that he did not like it, and was 
 only putting up with it for the sake of his mistress. 
 But when, that she might jump upon his back, she 
 laid hold of one of his wings, and ruffled some of 
 the blue feathers, he wheeled suddenly about, gave 
 his long tail a sharp whisk which threw her flat on
 
 IQO THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 the grass, and, trotting back to his mistress, bent 
 down his head before her as if asking excuse for 
 ridding himself of the unbearable. 
 
 The princess was furious. She had forgotten all 
 her past life up to the time when she first saw the 
 child : her beauty had made her forget, and yet she 
 was now on the very borders of hating her. What 
 she might have' done, or rather tried to do, had not 
 Peggy's tail struck her down with such force that 
 for a moment she could not rise, I cannot tell. 
 
 But while she lay half-stunned, her eyes fell on a 
 little flower just under them. It stared up in her 
 face like the living thing it was, and she could not 
 take her eyes off its face. It was like a primrose 
 trying to express doubt instead of confidence. It 
 seemed to put her half in mind of something, and 
 she felt as if shame were coming. She put out her 
 hand to pluck it ; but the moment her fingers 
 touched it, the flower withered up, and hung as
 
 A PARABLE. IQ1 
 
 dead on its stalk as if a flame of fire had passed 
 over it. 
 
 Then a shudder thrilled through the heart of the 
 princess, and she thought with herself, saying 
 " What sort of a creature am I that the flowers 
 wither when I touch them, and the ponies despise 
 me with their tails ? What a wretched, coarse, 
 ill-bred creature I must be ! There is that lovely 
 child giving life instead of death to the flowers, and 
 a moment ago I was hating her! I am made 
 horrid, and I shall be horrid, and I hate myself, and 
 yet I can't help being myself! " 
 
 She heard the sound of galloping feet, and there 
 was the pony, with the child seated betwixt his wings, 
 coming straight on at full speed for where she lay. 
 
 " I don't care," she said. " They may trample 
 me under their feet if they like. I am tired and 
 sick of myself a creature at whose touch the 
 flowers wither ! "
 
 192 THE WISE W03IAX. 
 
 On came the winged pony. But while yet some 
 distance off, he gave a great bound, spread out his 
 living sails of blue, rose yards and yards above 
 her in the air, and alighted as gently as a bird, 
 just a few feet on the other side of her. The 
 child slipped down and came and kneeled over 
 her. 
 
 "Did my pony hurt you?" she said. "I am so 
 sorry !" 
 
 " Yes, he hurt me," answered the princess, " but 
 not more than I deserved, for I took liberties with 
 him, and he did not like it. M 
 
 " Oh, you dear ! " said the little girl. " I love you 
 for talking so of my Peggy. He is a good pony, 
 though a little playful sometimes. Would you like 
 a ride upon him?" 
 
 " You darling beauty!" cried Rosamond, sobbing. 
 " I do love you so, you are so good. How did you 
 become so sweet?"
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 193 
 
 "Would you like to ride my pony?" repeated 
 the child, with a heavenly smile in her eyes. 
 
 " No, no ; he is fit only for you. My clumsy 
 body would hurt him," said Rosamond. 
 
 " You don't mind me having such a pony ? " said 
 the child. 
 
 " What ! mind it ? " cried Rosamond, almost 
 indignantly. Then remembering certain thoughts 
 that had but a few moments before passed through 
 her mind, she looked on the ground and was silent 
 
 "You don't mind it, then?" repeated the child. 
 
 " I am very glad there is such a you and such a 
 pony, and that such a you has got such a pony," 
 said Rosamond, still looking on the ground. " But 
 I do wish the flowers would not die \vlicn I touch 
 them. I was cross to see you make them grow, 
 but now I should be content if only I did not make 
 them wither." 
 
 As she spoke, she stroked the little girl's bare 
 o
 
 194 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 feet, which were by her, half buried in the soft 
 moss, and as she ended she laid her cheek on them 
 and kissed them. 
 
 "Dear princess," said the little girl, "the 
 flowers will not always wither at your touch. 
 Try now only do not pluck it. Flowers ought 
 never to be plucked except to give away. Touch 
 it gently." 
 
 A silvery flower, something like a snowdrop, 
 grew just within her reach. Timidly she stretched 
 out her hand and touched it. The flower trem- 
 bled, but neither shrank nor withered. 
 
 " Touch it again," said the child. 
 
 It changed colour a little, and Rosamond fancied 
 it grew larger. 
 
 " Touch it again," said the child. 
 
 It opened and grew until it was as large as a 
 narcissus, and changed and deepened in colour 
 till it was a red glowing gold.
 
 A PAYABLE. 195 
 
 Rosamond gazed motionless. When the trans- 
 figuration of the flower was perfected, she sprang 
 to her feet with clasped hands, but for very ecstasy 
 of joy stood speechless, gazing at the child. 
 
 " Did you never see me before, Rosamond ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 ' No, never," answered the princess. " I never 
 saw anything half so lovely." 
 
 " Look at me," said the child. 
 
 And as Rosamond looked, the child began, like 
 the flower, to grow larger. Quickly through every 
 gradation of growth she passed, until she stood 
 before her a woman perfectly beautiful, neither old 
 nor young ; for hers was the old age of everlasting 
 youth. 
 
 Rosamond was utterly enchanted, and stood 
 gazing without word or movement, until she could 
 endure no more delight. Then her mind collapsed 
 to the thought had the pony grown too ? She
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 glanced round. There was no pony, no grass, no 
 flowers, no bright-birded forest but the cottage of 
 the wise woman and before her, on the hearth of 
 it, the goddess-child, the only thing unchanged. 
 
 She gasped with astonishment 
 
 " You must set out for your father's palace im- 
 mediately," said the lady. 
 
 " But where is the wise woman ? " asked Rosa- 
 mond, looking all about 
 
 "Here!" said the lady. 
 
 And Rosamond, looking again, saw the wise 
 woman, folded as usual in her long dark cloak. 
 
 " It was you, then, after all!" she cried in de- 
 light, and kneeled before her, burying her face in 
 her garments. 
 
 " It always is me, after all," said the wise woman, 
 smiling. 
 
 "And it was you all the time?" 
 
 " It always is me all the time."
 
 A PARABLE. 197 
 
 " But which is the real you ?" asked Rosamond ; 
 " this or that ? " 
 
 " Or a thousand others ? " returned the wise 
 woman. " But the one you have just seen is the 
 likcst to the real me that you are able to see just 
 yet but . And that me you could not have 
 seen a little while ago. But, my darling child," 
 she went on, lifting her up and clasping her to 
 her bosom, " you must not think, because you have 
 seen me once, that therefore you are capable of 
 seeing me at all times. No ; there are many 
 things in you yet that must be changed before 
 that can be. Now, however, you will seek me. 
 Every time you feel you want me, that is a sign 
 I am wanting you. There are yet many rooms 
 in my house you may have to go through ; but 
 when you need no more of them, then you will 
 be able to throw flowers like the little girl you saw 
 in the forest"
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 The princess gave a sigh. 
 
 "Do not think," the wise woman went on, 
 " that the things you have seen in my house are 
 mere empty shows. You do not know, you cannot 
 yet think, how living and true they are. Now you 
 must go." 
 
 She led her once more into the great hall, and 
 there showed her the picture of her father's capital, 
 and his palace with the brazen gates. 
 
 " There is your home," she said. " Go to it." 
 
 The princess understood, and a flush of shame 
 rose to her forehead. She turned to the wise 
 woman and said : 
 
 " Will you forgive all my naughtiness, and all 
 the trouble I have given you ?" 
 
 " If I had not forgiven you, I would never have 
 taken the trouble to punish you. If I had not. 
 loved you, do you think I would have carried you 
 away in my cloak ? "
 
 A PARABLE. 199 
 
 " How could you love such an ugly, ill-tem- 
 pered, rude, hateful little wretch ?" 
 
 " I saw, through it all, what you were going to 
 be," said the wise woman, kissing her. " But re- 
 member you have yet only begun to be what I saw." 
 
 "I will try to remember," said the princess, 
 holding her cloak, and looking up in her face. 
 
 " Go, then," said the wise woman. 
 
 Rosamond turned away on the instant, ran to 
 the picture, stepped over the frame of it, heard a 
 door close gently, gave one glance back, saw 
 behind her the loveliest palace-front of alabaster, 
 gleaming in the pale-yellow light of an early 
 summer-morning, looked again to the eastward, 
 saw the faint outline of her father's city against 
 the sky, and ran off to reach it. 
 
 It looked much further off now than when it 
 seemed a picture, but the sun was not yet up, and 
 she had the whole of a summer-day before her.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HTHE soldiers sent out by the king, had no great 
 difficulty in finding Agnes's father and mother, 
 of whom they demanded if they knew anything of 
 such a young princess as they described. The 
 honest pair told them the truth in every point 
 that, having lost their own child and found 
 another, they had taken her home, and treated her 
 as their own ; that she had indeed called herself a 
 princess, but they had not believed her, because she 
 did not look like one ; that, even if they had, they 
 did not know how they could have done differently, 
 seeing they were poor people, who could not afford
 
 A PARABLE. 2OI 
 
 to keep any idle person about the place ; that they 
 had done their best to teach her good ways, and 
 had not parted with her until her bad temper ren- 
 dered it impossible to put up with her any longer ; 
 that, as to the king's proclamation, they heard 
 little of the world's news on their lonely hill, 
 and it had never reached them ; that if it had, 
 they did not know how either of them could 
 have gone such a distance from home, and left 
 their sheep or their cottage, one or the other, un- 
 cared for. 
 
 " You must learn, then, how both of you can go, 
 and your sheep must take care of your cottage," 
 said the lawyer, and commanded the soldiers to 
 bind them hand and foot. 
 
 Heedless of their entreaties to be spared such an 
 indignity, the soldiers obeyed, bore them 10 a cart, 
 and set out for the king's palace, leaving the cot- 
 tage door open, the fire burning, the pot of potatoes
 
 2O2 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 boiling upon it, the sheep scattered over the hill, 
 and the dogs not knowing what to do. 
 
 Hardly were they gone, however, before the wise 
 woman walked up, with Prince behind her, peeped 
 into the cottage, locked the door, put the key in 
 her pocket, and then walked away up the hill. In 
 a few minutes there arose a great battle between 
 Prince and the dog which filled his former place 
 a well-meaning but dull fellow, who could fight 
 better than feed. Prince was not long in showing 
 him that he was meant for his master, and then, by 
 his efforts, and directions to the other dogs, the 
 sheep w r ere soon gathered again, and out of danger 
 from foxes and bad dogs. As soon as this was 
 done, the wise woman left them in charge of. 
 Prince, while she went to the next farm to arrange 
 for the folding of the sheep, and the feeding of 
 the dogs. 
 
 When the soldiers reached the palace, they were
 
 A PARABLE. 2OJ 
 
 ordered to carry their prisoners at once into the 
 presence of the king and queen, in the throne 
 room. Their two thrones stood upon a high dais 
 at one end, and on the floor, at the foot of the dais, 
 the soldiers laid their helpless prisoners. The 
 queen commanded that they should be unbound, 
 and ordered them to stand up. They obeyed with 
 the dignity of insulted innocence, and their bearing 
 offended their foolish majesties. 
 
 Meantime the princess, after a long day's jour- 
 ney, arrived at the palace, and walked up to the 
 sentry at the gate. 
 
 " Stand back," said the sentry. 
 
 " I wish to go in, if you please," said the princess 
 gently. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the sentry, for he was 
 one of those dull people who form their judgment 
 from a person's clothes, without even looking in his 
 eyes ; and as the princess happened to be in rags,
 
 2O4 THE WISE WOMAN". 
 
 her request was amusing, ,and the booby thought 
 himself quite clever for laughing at her so 
 thoroughly. 
 
 " I am the princess," Rosamond said quietly. 
 
 " What princess ? " bellowed the man. 
 
 " The princess Rosamond. Is there another ? " 
 she answered and asked. 
 
 But the man was so tickled at the wondrous idea 
 of a princess in rags, that he scarcely heard what 
 she said for laughing. As soon as he recovered a 
 little, he proceeded to chuck the princess under the 
 chin, saying 
 
 " You're a pretty girl, my dear, though you ain't 
 no princess." 
 
 Rosamond drew back with dignity. 
 
 " You have spoken three untruths at once," she 
 said. " I am not pretty, and I am a princess, and 
 if I were dear to you, as I ought to be, you would 
 not laugh at me because I am badly dressed, but
 
 A PARABLE. 20$ 
 
 stand aside, and let me go to my father and 
 mother." 
 
 The tone of her speech, and the rebuke she gave 
 him, made the man look at her ; and looking at 
 her, he began to tremble inside his foolish body, 
 and wonder whether he might not have made a 
 mistake. He raised his hand in salute, and said 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss, but I have express 
 orders to admit no child whatever within the palace 
 gates. They tell me his majesty the king says he 
 is sick of children." 
 
 " He may well be sick of me ! " thought the prin- 
 cess ; " but it can't mean that he does not want me 
 home again. I don't think you can very well call me 
 a child," she said, looking the sentry full in the face. 
 
 "You ain't very big, Miss," answered the soldier, 
 " but so be you say you ain't a child, I'll take the 
 risk. The king can only kill me, and a man must 
 die once."
 
 2C)6 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 He opened the gate, stepped aside, and allowed 
 lier to pass. Had she lost her temper, as every one 
 but the wise woman would have expected of her, 
 lie certainly would not have done so. 
 
 She ran into the palace, the door of which had 
 ibeen left open by the porter when he followed the 
 soldiers and prisoners to the throne-room, and 
 bounded up the stairs to look for her father and 
 mother. As she passed the door of the throne-room 
 she heard an unusual noise in it, and running to 
 the king's private entrance, over which hung a 
 heavy curtain, she peeped past the edge of it, and 
 saw, to her amazement, the shepherd and shep- 
 herdess standing like culprits before the king and 
 queen, and the same moment heard the king say 
 
 " Peasants, where is the princess Rosamond ? " 
 
 "Truly, sire, we do not know," answered the 
 shepherd. 
 
 " You ought to know," said the king.
 
 A PARABLE. 2O7 
 
 " Sire, we could keep her no longer." 
 
 " You confess, then," said the king, suppressing 
 the outbreak of the wrath that boiled up in him, 
 " that you turned her out of your house ? " 
 
 For the king had been informed by a swift 
 messenger of all that had passed long before the 
 arrival of the prisoners. 
 
 " We did, sire ; but not only could we keep her 
 no longer, but we knew not that she was the 
 princess." 
 
 "You ought to have known, the moment you 
 cast your eyes upon her," said the king. "Any one 
 who does not know a princess the moment he sees 
 her, ought to have his eyes put out." 
 
 " Indeed he ought," said the queen. 
 
 To this they returned no answer, for they had 
 none ready. 
 
 "Why did you not bring her at once to the 
 palace," pursued the king, " whether you knew her
 
 2O8 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 to be a princess or not ? My proclamation left 
 nothing to your judgment. It said every child." 
 
 " We heard nothing of the proclamation, sire." 
 
 " You ought to have heard," said the king. " It 
 is enough that I make proclamations ; it is for you 
 to read them. Are they not written in letters of 
 gold upon the brazen gates of this palace ? " 
 
 "A poor shepherd, your majesty how often 
 must he leave his flock, and go hundreds of miles 
 to look whether there may not be something in 
 letters of gold upon the brazen gates ? We did not 
 know that your majesty had made a proclamation, 
 or even that the princess was lost." 
 
 " You ought to have known," said the king. 
 
 The shepherd held his peace. 
 
 " But," said the queen, taking up the word, " all 
 that is as nothing, when I think how you misused 
 the darling." 
 
 The only ground the queen had for saying this,
 
 A PARABLE. 209 
 
 was what Agnes had told her as to how the princess 
 was dressed ; and her condition seemed to the 
 queen so miserable, that she had imagined all sorts 
 of oppression and cruelty. 
 
 But this was more than the shepherdess, who 
 had not yet spoken, could bear. 
 
 " She would have been dead, and not buried, long 
 ago, madam, if I had not carried her home in my 
 two arms." 
 
 " Why does the woman say her two arms ? " said 
 the king to himself. " Has she more than two ? 
 Is there treason in that?" 
 
 " You dressed her in cast-off clothes," said the 
 queen. 
 
 ' I dressed her in my own sweet child's Sunday 
 clothes. And this is what I get for it ! " cried the 
 shepherdess, bursting into tears. 
 
 " And what did you do with the clothes you took 
 off her? Sell them?" 
 
 P
 
 2IO THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 " Put them in the fire, madam. They were not 
 fit for the poorest child in the mountains. They 
 were so ragged that you could see her skin through 
 them in twenty different places." 
 
 "You cruel woman, to torture a mother's feelings 
 so ! " cried the queen, and in her turn burst into 
 tears. 
 
 "And I'm sure," sobbed the shepherdess, "I 
 took every pains to teach her what it was right for 
 her to know. I taught her to tidy the house,, 
 and " 
 
 " Tidy the house ! " moaned the queen. " My 
 poor wretched offspring ! " 
 
 " And peel the potatoes, and " 
 
 " Peel the potatoes ! " cried the queen. " Oh, 
 horror ! " 
 
 " And black her master's boots," said the shep- 
 herdess. 
 
 " Black her master's boots ! " shrieked the queen.
 
 A PARABLE. 211 
 
 " Oh, my white-handed princess ! Oh, my ruined 
 baby ! " 
 
 " What I want to know," said the king, paying 
 no heed to this maternal duel, but patting the top 
 of his sceptre as if it had been the hilt of a sword 
 which he was about to draw, " is, where the princess 
 is now." 
 
 The shepherd made no answer, for he had nothing 
 to say more than he had said already. 
 
 " You have murdered her ! " shouted the king. 
 "You shall be tortured till you confess the truth ; 
 and then you shall be tortured to death, for you 
 are the most abominable wretches in the whole 
 wide world." 
 
 " Who accuses me of crime ? " cried the shcphcrJ, 
 indignant. 
 
 "I accuse you," said the king; "but you shall 
 2C, face to face, the chief witness to your villain)-. 
 Officer, bring the girl."
 
 212 THE WISE WOMAN'. 
 
 Silence filled the hall while they waited. The 
 king's face was swollen with anger. The queen hid 
 hers behind her handkerchief. The shepherd and 
 shepherdess bent their eyes on the ground, wonder- 
 ing. It was with difficulty Rosamond could keep 
 her place, but so wise had she already become that 
 she saw it would be far better to let everything 
 come out before she interfered. 
 
 At length the door opened, and in came the 
 officer, followed by Agnes, looking white as death, 
 and mean as sin. 
 
 " The shepherdess gave a shriek, and darted 
 towards her with arms spread wide ; the shepherd 
 followed, but not so eagerly. 
 
 " My child ! my lost darling ! my Agnes ! " cried 
 the shepherdess. 
 
 " Hold them asunder," shouted the king. "Here 
 is more villainy ! " What ! have I a scullery-maid 
 in my house born of such parents ? The parents
 
 A PARABLE. 213 
 
 of such a child must be capable of anything. Take 
 all three of them to the rack. Stretch them till 
 their joints are torn asunder, and give them no 
 water. Away with them ! " 
 
 The soldiers approached to lay hands on them. 
 But, behold ! a girl, all in rags, with such a radiant 
 countenance that it was right lovely to see, darted 
 between, and careless of the royal presence, flung 
 herself upon the shepherdess, crying, 
 
 "Do not touch her. She is my good, kind 
 mistress." 
 
 But the shepherdess could hear or see no one but 
 her Agnes, and pushed her away. Then the princess 
 turned, with the tears in her eyes, to the shepherd, 
 and thicw her arms about his neck and pulled 
 down his head and kissed him. And the tall shep- 
 herd lifted her to his bosom and kept her there, 
 but his eyes were fixed on his Agnes. 
 
 " What is the meaning of this ? " cried the king,
 
 2 I 4. THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 starting up from his throne. " How did that 
 ragged girl get in here ? Take her away with the 
 rest. She is one of them, too." 
 
 But the princess made the shepherd set her 
 down, and before any one could interfere she had 
 run up the steps of the dais and then the steps 
 of the king's throne like a squirrel, flung herself 
 upon the king, and begun to smother him with 
 kisses. 
 
 All stood astonished, except the three peasants, 
 who did not even see what took place. The 
 shepherdess kept calling to her Agnes, but she was 
 so ashamed that she did not dare even lift her eyes 
 to meet her mother's, and the shepherd kept gazing 
 on her in silence. As for the king, he was so 
 breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he 
 was too feeble to fling the ragged child from him 
 as he tried to do. But she left him, and running 
 down the steps of the one throne and up those of
 
 A PARABLE. 215 
 
 the other, began kissing the queen next. But the 
 queen cried out, 
 
 " Get away, you great rude child ! Will nobody 
 take her to the rack ? " 
 
 Then the princess, hardly knowing what she did 
 for joy that she had come in time, ran down the 
 steps of the throne and the dais, and placing herself 
 between the shepherd and shepherdess, took a hand 
 of each, and stood looking at the king and queen.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 '"THEIR faces began to change. At last they 
 began to know her. But she was so altered so 
 lovelily altered, that it was no wonder they should 
 not have known her at the first glance ; but it was 
 the fault of the pride and anger and injustice with 
 which their hearts were filled, that they did not 
 know her at the second. 
 
 The king gazed and the queen gazed, both half 
 risen from their thrones, and looking as if about to 
 tumble down upon her, if only they could be right 
 sure that the ragged girl was their own child. A 
 mistake would be such a dreadful thing !
 
 A PARABLE. 217 
 
 "My darling!" at last shrieked the mother, a 
 little doubtfully. 
 
 " My pet of pets ! " cried the father, with an 
 interrogative twist of tone. 
 
 Another moment, and they were half way down 
 the steps of the dais. 
 
 " Stop ! " said a voice of command from some- 
 where in the hall, and, king and queen as they 
 were, they stopped at once half way, then drew 
 themselves up, stared, and began to grow angry 
 again, but durst not go farther. 
 
 The wise woman was coming slowly up through 
 the crowd that filled the hall. Every one made 
 way for her. She came straight on until she stood 
 in front of the king and queen. 
 
 " Miserable man and woman ! " she said, in 
 words they alone could hear, "I took your daughter 
 away when she was worthy of such parents ; I 
 bring her back, and they arc unworthy of her.
 
 -2 I 8 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 That you did not know her when she came to you 
 is a small wonder, for you have been blind in soul 
 all your lives : now be blind in body until your 
 better eyes are unsealed." 
 
 She threw her cloak open. It fell to the ground, 
 and the radiance that flashed from her robe of 
 snowy whiteness, from her face of awful beauty, 
 and from her eyes that shone like pools of sunlight, 
 smote them blind. 
 
 Rosamond saw them give a great start, shudder, 
 waver to and fro, then sit down on the steps of the 
 dais ; and she knew they were punished, but knew 
 not how. She rushed up to them, and catching a 
 hand of each, said 
 
 " Father, dear father ! mother dear ! I will ask 
 the wise woman to forgive you." 
 
 " Oh, I am blind ! I am blind ! " they cried 
 together. " Dark as night ! Stone blind ! " 
 
 Rosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and
 
 A PARABLE. 219 
 
 kneeling at her feet, cried, " Oh, my lovely wise 
 woman ! do let them see. Do open their eyes, 
 dear, good, wise woman!" 
 
 The wise woman bent down to her, and said, so 
 that none else could hear, 
 
 " I will one day. Meanwhile you must be their 
 servant, as I have been yours. Bring them to me, 
 and I will make them welcome." 
 
 Rosamond rose, went up the steps again to her 
 father and mother, where they sat like statues with 
 closed eyes, half-way from the top of the dais where 
 stood their empty thrones, seated herself between 
 them, took a hand of each, and was still. 
 
 All this time very few in the room saw the wise 
 woman. The moment she threw off her cloak she 
 vanished from the sight of almost all who were 
 present. The woman who swept and dusted the 
 hall and brushed the thrones, saw her, and the 
 shepherd had a glimmering vision of her ; but no
 
 22O THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 one else that I know of caught a glimpse of her. 
 The shepherdess did not see her. Nor did Agnes, 
 but she felt her presence upon her like the heat of 
 a furnace seven times heated. 
 
 As soon as Rosamond ha,d taken her place 
 between her father and mother, the wise woman 
 lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again 
 around her. Then everybody saw her, and Agnes- 
 felt as if a soft dewy cloud had come between her 
 and the torrid rays of a vertical sun. The wise 
 woman turned to the shepherd and shepherdess. 
 
 " For you," she said, " you are sufficiently pun- 
 ished by the work of your own hands. Instead of 
 making your daughter obey you, you left her to be 
 a slave to herself; you coaxed when you ought 
 to have compelled ; you praised when you ought 
 to have been silent ; you fondled when you ought 
 to have punished ; you threatened when you ought 
 to have inflicted and there she stands, the full-
 
 A PARABLE. 221 
 
 grown result of your foolishness ! She is your 
 crime and your punishment. Take her home with 
 you, and live hour after hour with the pale-hearted 
 disgrace you call your daughter. What she is, the 
 worm at her heart has begun to teach her. When 
 life is no longer endurable, come to me." 
 
 "Madam," said the shepherd, "may I not go 
 with you now ? " 
 
 " You shall," said the wise woman. 
 "Husband! husband!" cried the shepherdess, 
 * how are we two to get home without you ? " 
 
 " I will see to that," said the wise woman. " But 
 little of. home you will find it until you have come 
 to me. The king carried you hither, and he shall 
 carry you back. But your husband shall not go 
 with you. He cannot now if he would." 
 
 The shepherdess looked, and saw that the shep- 
 herd stood in a deep sleep. She went to him and 
 sought to rouse him, but neither tongue nor hands 
 were of the slightest avail
 
 THE WISE WOMAN. 
 
 The wise woman turned to Rosamond. 
 
 " My child," she said, " I shall never be far from 
 you. Come to me when you will. Bring them to 
 me." 
 
 Rosamond smiled and kissed her hand, but kept 
 her place by her parents. They also were now in 
 a deep sleep like the shepherd. 
 
 The wise woman took the shepherd by the hand, 
 and led him away. 
 
 " And that is all my double story. How double 
 it is, if you care to know, you must find out. If 
 you think it is not finished I never knew a story 
 that was. I could tell you a great deal more 
 concerning them all, but I have already told more 
 than is good for those who read but with their 
 foreheads, and enough for those whom it has made 
 look a little solemn, and sigh as they close the 
 book.
 
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