 CHAPTER 1. 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 wee gold, whether he would wick sweet-tempered or cross. In strict accordance with the peculiar nature of this country of uncertainties, it came to pass one day that in the midst of a shower of rain that might well be called golden, seeing the sun shining as it fell, turned all its drops into molten topazes, and every drop was good for a grain of golden corn, or a yellow cow slip, or a buttercup, or a dandelion at least. While this splendid rain was falling, I say, with a musical pattern upon the great leaves of the horse-chestnuts, which hung, like van dyke collars about the necks of the creamy red-spotted blossoms, and on the leaves of the sycamores, looking as if they had blood in their veins, and on the 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 that only, but with clumsy hands, spoiling what I steal. O rain, with your dull twofold sound, the clash hard by, and the murmur all round. There, take it, Mr. Coleridge, while, as I was saying, the lovely little rivers, whose fountains are the clouds, and which cut their own channels through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing against their banks, as they hurry down and down, until at length they are pulled up on a sudden, with a musical plash, in the very heart of an odorous flower, that first gasps, and then sighs up a blissful scent, or on the bald head of a stone that never says thank you. While the very sheep felt it blessing them, though it could never reach their skins through the depth of their long wool, and the various hedgehog, I mean the one with the longest spikes, came and spiked himself out, to impale as many of the drops as he could. While the rain was thus falling, and the leaves, and the flowers, and the sheep, and the cattle, and the hedgehog, were all busily receiving the golden rain, something happened. It was not a great battle, nor an earthquake, nor a coronation, but something more important than all those put together. A baby girl was born, and her father was a king, and her mother was a queen, and her uncles and aunts were princes and princesses, and her first cousins were dukes and duchesses, and not one of her second cousins was less than a Marquis or Marchenès, or of their third cousins less than an Earl or Countess, and below a Countess they did not care to count. So the little girl was somebody, and yet for all that, strange to say, the first thing she did was to cry. I told you it was a strange country. As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that she was somebody, and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it that she quite forgot that anyone 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 for 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 butter-cups, only steep, rough, breezy slopes, covered with dry prickly furs and its flowers of red gold, or moisture softer broom with its flowers of yellow gold, and great sweeps of purple heather mixed with billberries and crowberries and cranberries. No, I am all wrong. There was nothing out yet but a few furs blossoms. The rest were all waiting behind their doors till they were called, and no full, slow-gliding river with meadowsweet along its oozy banks, only a little brook here and there, that dashed past without a moment to say, How'd you do? There would you believe it, while the same cloud that was dropping down golden rain all about the queen's new baby was dashing huge fierce handfuls of hail upon the hills, with such force that they flew spinning off the rocks and stones, went burrowing in the sheep's wool, stung the cheeks and chin of the shepherd with their sharp, spiteful little blows, and made his dog wink and whine as they bounded off his hard-wise head and long sagacious nose. Only when they dropped plump down the chimney and fell hissing in the little fire they caught it then, for the clever little fire soon sent them up the chimney again, a good deal swollen and harmless enough for a while. There, what do you think, among the hailstones, and the heather, and the cold mountain air, another little girl was born, whom the shepherd her father, and the shepherd is her mother, and a good many of her kindred too, thought somebody. She had not an uncle or an aunt that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid, not a cousin that was less than a farm labourer, not a second cousin that was less than a grocer, and they did not count farther. And yet, would you believe it, she too cried the very first thing. It was an odd country, and, what is still more surprising, the shepherd and shepherdess and the dairymaids and the 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 somebody, that she also forgot that there were a great many more somebody's besides herself in the world. It was indeed a peculiar country, very different from ours, so different that my reader must not be too much surprised when I add the amazing fact that most of its inhabitants, instead of enjoying the things they had, were always wanting the things they had not, often even the things it was least likely they ever could have. The grown men and women being like this, there is no reason to be further astonished that the princess Rosamond, the name her parents gave her, because it means rose of the world, should grow up like them, wanting 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 they were only a common king and queen. They could and did give her a lighted candle when she cried for it, and managed by much care that she should not burn her fingers or set her frock on fire. But when she cried for the moon, that they could not give her. They did the worst possible thing instead, however, for they pretended to do what they could not. They got her a thin disk 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, in as much as she could not shine in the dark. Her nurse happened to snuff out the candles as she was playing with it, and instantly came a shriek of rage, for her moon had vanished. Presently, through the opening of the curtains, she caught sight of the real moon far away in the sky, and shining quite calmly, as if she had been there all the time. And her rage increased, to such a degree that if it had not passed off in a fit I do not know what might have come of it. As she grew up it was still the same, with this difference, that not only must she have 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 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. Even if they could they would run away, and she was furious. Some white mice which she had ceased feeding altogether did so, and soon the palace was swarming with white mice. Their red eyes might be seen glowing and their white skins gleaming in every dark corner, but when it came to the king's finding a nest of them in his second best crown he was angry and ordered them to be drowned. The princess heard of it, however, and raised such a clamor that there they were left until they should run away of themselves, and the poor king had to wear his best crown every day till then. Nothing that was the princess's property whether she cared for it or not was to be meddled with. Of course, as she grew she grew worse, for she never tried to grow better. She became more and more peevish and fretful every day, dissatisfied not only with what she had, but with all that was around her, and constantly wishing things in general to be different. She found fault with 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 for morning to night, her parents thought it time to do something. A long way from the palace, in the heart of a deep wood of pine trees, lived a wise woman. In some countries she would have been called a witch, but that would have been a mistake, for she never did anything wicked, and had more power than any witch could have. As her fame was spread through the country, the king heard of her, and thinking she might perhaps be able to suggest something sent for her. In the dead of night, lest the princess should know of it, the king's messenger brought into the palace a tall woman muffled from head to foot in a cloak of black cloth. In the presence of both their majesties, the king to do her honor requested her to sit, but she declined and stood waiting to hear what they had to say. Nor had she to wait long, for almost instantly they began to tell her the dreadful trouble they were in with their only child. First the king talking, then the queen, interposing with some yet more dreadful fact, and at times both letting out a torrent of words together, so anxious were they to show the wise woman that their perplexity was real and their daughter a very terrible one. For a long while there appeared no sign of approaching pause, but the wise woman stood patiently folded in her black cloak and listened without word or motion. At length silence fell, for they had talked themselves tired, and could not think of 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, disclosed a garment made of a strange stuff, which an old poet who knew her well has thus described. All lily white without in spoto pride, that seemed like silk and silver woven near, but neither silk nor silver therein did appear. How very badly you have treated her, said the wise woman, poor child. Treated her badly, gasped the king. She is a very wicked child, said the queen, and both glared with indignation. Yes indeed, returned the wise woman, she is very naughty indeed, and that she must be made to feel, but it is half your fault. What! stammered the king. Haven't we given her every mortal thing she wanted? Surely, said the wise woman, what else could have all but killed her? You should have given her a few things of the other sort, but you are far too dull to understand me. You are very polite, remarked the king, with royal sarcasm on his thin, straight lips. The wise woman made no answer beyond a deep sigh, and the king and queen sat silent also in their anger, glaring at the wise woman. The silence lasted again for a minute, and then the wise woman folded her cloak around her, and her shining garment vanished like the moon, when a great cloud comes over her. Yet another minute passed, and the silence endured, for the smoldering wrath of the king and queen choked the channels of their speech. Then the wise woman turned her back on them, and so stood. At this the rage of the king broke forth, and he cried to the queen, stammering in his fierceness. How should such an old hag as that teach Rosamond good manners? She knows nothing of them herself. Look how she stands, actually with her back to us. At the word the wise woman walked from the room. The great folding doors fell too behind her, and the same moment the king and queen were quarreling like apes as to which of them was to blame for her departure. Before their altercation was over, for it lasted till the early morning, in rust Rosamond, clutching in her hand a poor little white rabbit, of which she was very fond, and from which only because it would not come to her when she called it, she was pulling handfuls of fur in the attempt to tear the squealing pink-eared red-eyed thing to pieces. Rosa, Rosamond! cried the queen, whereupon Rosamond threw the rabbit in her mother's face. The king started up in 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 started looking at her, she rose slowly, crossed the hall, and walked away down the marble staircase. The king called to her, but she never turned her head, or gave the least sign that she heard him. So quietly did she pass down the wide marble stair, that the king was all but persuaded he had seen only a shadow gliding across the white steps. For the princess she was nowhere to be found. The queen went into hysterics, and the rabbit ran away. The king sent out messengers in every direction, but in vain. In a short time the palace was quiet, as quiet as it used to be before the princess was born. The king and queen cried a little now and then, for the hearts of parents were in that country strangely fashioned. And yet I am afraid the first movement of those very hearts would have been a jump of terror if the ears above them had heard the voice of Rosamond in one of the corridors. As for the rest of the household, they could not have made up a single tear amongst them. They thought, whatever it might be for the princess, it was, for everyone 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. The fact, as is plain, was that the princess had disappeared in the folds of the wise woman's cloak. When she rushed from the room, the wise woman caught her to her bosom, and flung the black garment around her. The princess struggled wildly, for she was in fierce terror, and screamed as loud as choking fright would permit her. But her father, standing in the door, and looking down upon the wise woman, saw never a movement of the cloak, so tight was she held by her captor. He was indeed aware of a most angry crying which reminded him of his daughter, but it sounded to him so far away, that he took it for the passion of some child in the street outside the palace gates. Hence, unchallenged, the wise woman carried the princess down the marble stairs, out at the palace door, down a great flight of steps outside, across a paved court, through the brazen gates, along half-route streets where people were opening their shops, through the huge gates of the city, and out into the wide road, vanishing northwards. The princess struggling and screaming all the time, and the wise woman holding her tight. When at length she was too tired to struggle or scream any more, the wise woman unfolded her cloak, and set her down. And the princess saw the light, and opened her swollen eyelids. There was nothing in sight that she had ever seen before. City and palace had disappeared. They were upon a wide road going straight on, with the ditch on each side of it, that behind them widened into the great moat surrounding the city. She cast up a terrified look into the wise woman's face, that gazed down upon her gravely and kindly. Now the princess did not in the least understand kindness. She always took it for a sign, either of partiality or fear. So when the wise woman looked kindly upon her, she rushed at her, butting with her head like a ram. But the folds of the cloak had closed around the wise woman, and when the princess ran against it, she found it hard as the cloak of a bronze statue, and fell back upon the road with the great bruise on her head. The wise woman lifted her again, and put her once more under the cloak where she fell asleep, and where she awoke again, only to find that she was still being carried on and on. When at length the wise woman again stopped and set her down, she saw around her a bright moonlit night, on a wide heath, solitary, and houseless. Here she felt more frightened than before, nor was her terror assuaged when, looking up, she saw a stern, immovable countenance, with cold eyes, fixedly regarding her. All she knew of the world being derived from nursery tales, she concluded that the wise woman was an ogreess, carrying her home to eat her. I have already said that the princess was, at this time of her life, such a low-minded creature, that severity had greater influence over her than kindness. She understood terror better far than tenderness. When the wise woman looked at her thus, she fell on her knees, and held up her hands to her, crying, Oh, don't eat me, don't eat me! Now this being the best she could do, it was a sign she was a low creature. Think of it, to kick at kindness, and kneel from terror. But the sternness on the face of the wise woman came from the same heart, and the same feeling as the kindness that had shown 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 Rosamund's, and lifting her to her feet, led her along through the moonlight. Every now and then a gush of obstinacy would well up in the heart of the princess, and she would give a great ill-tempered tug and pull her hand away. But then the wise woman would gaze down upon her with such a look that she instantly sought again the hand she had rejected in pure terror lest she should be eaten upon the spot, and so they would walk on again. And when the wind blew the folds of the cloak against the princess, she found them soft as her mother's camel-hair shawl. After a little while the wise woman began to sing to her, and the princess could not help listening, for the soft wind amongst the low, dry bushes of the heath, the rustle of their own steps, and the trailing of the wise woman's cloak were the only sounds beside. And this is the song she sang. Out in the cold, with a thin wound up withered gold, and she has no but she does not. Strange as the song was the crooning, wailing tune that the wise woman sung. At the first note almost you would have thought she wanted to frighten the princess, and so indeed she did. For when people will be naughty, they have to be frightened, and they are not expected to like it. The princess grew angry, pulled her hand away, and cried, You are the ugly old woman! I hate you! Therewith she stood still, expecting the wise woman to stop also, perhaps coax her to go on. If she did, she was determined not to move a step. But the wise woman never even looked about. She kept walking on steadily, the same space as before. Little obstinate thought for certain she would turn, for she regarded herself as much too precious to be left behind. But on and on the wise woman went, until she had vanished away in the dim moonlight. Then all at once the princess perceived that she was left alone with the moon, looking down on her from the height of her loneliness. She was horribly frightened, and began to run after the wise woman calling aloud. But the song she had just heard came back to the sound of her own running feet. And again she screamed as she ran, how she wished she knew the old woman's name, that she might call it after her through the moonlight. But the wise woman had in truth heard the first sound of her running feet, and stopped and turned, waiting. What with running and crying, however, and a fall or two as she ran, the princess never saw her until she fell right into her arms, and the same moment into a fresh rage. For as soon as any trouble was over the princess was always ready to begin another. The wise woman therefore pushed her away and walked on, while the princess ran scolding and storming after her. She had to run till, from very fatigue, her rudeness ceased. Her heart gave way. She burst into tears and ran on silently weeping. A minute more, and the wise woman stooped, and lifting her in her arms folded her cloak around her. Suddenly she fell asleep, and slept as soft and as soundly as if she had been in her own bed. She slept till the moon went down. She slept till the sun rose up. She slept till he climbed the topmost sky. She slept till he went down again, and the poor old moon came peaking and peering out once more. And all that time the wise woman went walking on and on very fast. And now they had reached a spot where a few fir trees came to meet them through the moonlight. At the same time the princess awaked, and popping her head out between the folds of the wise woman's cloak, a very ugly little outlet she looked, saw that they were entering the wood. Now there is something awful about every wood, especially in the moonlight, and perhaps a firwood is more awful than other woods. For one thing it lets a little more light through, rendering the darkness a little more visible as it were, and then the trees go stretching away up towards the moon and look as if they cared nothing about the creatures below them, not like the broad trees with soft wide leaves that in the darkness even look sheltering. So the princess is not to be blamed that she was very much frightened. She is hardly to be blamed either that assured the wise woman was an ogre carrying her to her castle to eat her up. She began again to kick and scream violently, as those of my readers who are of the same sort as herself will consider the right and natural thing to do. The wrong in her was this, that she had led such a bad life that she did not know a good woman when she saw her, took her for one like herself even after she had slept in her arms. Finally 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 heated 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 harken and howl and snuff about, and run hither and thither, and grin with their white teeth, and light up the green lamps in their eyes. In a minute or two a whole army of wolves and hyenas were rushing from all quarters through the pillar-like stems of the fir trees, to the place where she stood calling them, without knowing it. The noise she made herself, however, prevented her from hearing either their howls or the soft pattering of their many trampling feet, as they bounded over the fallen fir-needles and cones. One huge old wolf had outsped the rest, not that he could run faster, but that from experience he could more exactly judge whence the cries came. And as he shot through the wood, she caught sight at last of his lamping eyes coming swiftly, nearer and nearer. Terror silenced her. She stood with her mouth open, as if she were going to eat the wolf, but she had no breath to scream with, and her tongue curled up in her mouth like a withered and frozen leaf. She could do nothing but stare at the coming monster. And now he was taking a few shorter bounds, measuring the distance for the one final leap that should bring him upon her. When outstepped the wise woman from behind the very tree by which she had set the princess down, caught the wolf by the throat halfway in his last spring, shook him once and threw him from her dead, then she turned towards the princess, who flung herself into her arms and was instantly lapped in the folds of her cloak. But now the huge army of wolves and hyenas had rushed like a sea around them, whose waves leaped with horse 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 sometimes she walked unattended and assailed on all sides by the howling pack. Suddenly they turned and swept away, vanishing in the depths of the forest. She neither slackened nor hastened her step, but went walking on as before. In a little while she unfolded her cloak and let the princess look out. The furs had ceased, and they were on a lofty height of moorland, stony and bare and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants here and there. About the heath on every side lay the forest, looking in the moonlight like a cloud, and above the forest, like the shaven crown of a monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking. Presently a little way in front of them the princess espied a whitewashed cottage gleaming in the moon. As they came nearer she saw that the roof was covered with thatch over which the moss had grown green. It was a very simple humble place, not in the least terrible to look at, and yet as soon as she saw it, her fear again awoke, and always as soon as her fear awoke, the trust of the princess fell into a dead sleep. Foolish and useless as she might by this time have known it, she once more began kicking and screaming, whereupon yet once more the wise woman set her down on the heath, a few yards from the back of the cottage and saying only, no one ever gets into my house who does not knock at the door and ask to come in. Disappeared round the corner of the cottage, leaving the princess alone with the moon, two white faces in the cone of the night. 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 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 stocks 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 fur wood, and the princess knew what it was full of. And every now and then she thought she heard the howling of its wolves and hyenas, and who could tell but some of them might break from their covert and sweep like a shadow across the heath. Indeed it was not once nor twice that for a moment she was fully persuaded she saw a great beast coming leaping and bounding through the moonlight to have her all to himself. She did not know that not a single evil creature dared set foot on that heath, or that if one should do so it would that instant wither up and cease. If an army of them had rushed to invade it, it would have melted away on the edge of it and ceased like a dying wave. She even imagined that the moon was slowly coming nearer and nearer down the sky to take her and freeze her to death in her arms. The wise woman, too, she felt sure, although her cottage looked asleep, was watching her at some little window. In this, however, she would have been quite right if she had only imagined enough, namely that the wise woman was watching over her from the little window. But after all, somehow, the thought of the wise woman was less frightful than that of any of her other terrors, and at length she began to wonder whether it might not turn out that she was no ogrus, 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 ogrus, her cottage must be better than that horrible loneliness, with nothing in all the world but a stare, and even an ogrus had at least the shape and look of a human being. She darted around 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 inside 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 down on the hearth, which came up to the walls of the cottage on every side, and roared and screamed with rage. Suddenly, however, she remembered how her screaming had brought the horde of wolves and hyenas about her in the forest, and ceasing at once lay still, gazing yet again at the moon. And then came the thought of her parents in the palace at home. In her mind's eye she saw her mother sitting at her embroidery, with the tears dropping upon it, and her father staring into the fire as if he were looking for her in its glowing caverns. It is true that if they had both been in tears by her side because of her naughtiness, she would not have cared a straw. But now her own forlorn condition somehow helped her to understand their grief at having lost her. And not only a great longing to be back in her comfortable home, but a feeble flutter of genuine love for her parents awoke in her heart as well. Then she burst into real tears, soft, mournful tears, very different from those of rage and disappointment to which she was so much used. And another very remarkable thing was 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 ogreous vanished utterly, and she thought of her only as one to take her in from the moon and the loneliness, and the terrors of the forest-haunted heath, and hide her in a cottage with not even a door for the horrid wolves to howl against. But the old woman, as the princess called her, not knowing that her real name was the wise woman, had told her that she must knock at the door. How was she to do that when there was no door? But again she bethought herself, that if she could not do all she was told, she could at least do a part of it. If she could not knock at the door, she could at least knock, say, on the wall, for there was nothing else to knock upon, and perhaps the old woman would hear her and lift her in by some window. Thereupon she rose at once to her feet, and picking up a stone began to knock on the wall with it. A loud noise was the result, and she found she was knocking on the very door itself. For a moment she feared the old woman would be offended, but the next there came a voice, saying, Who is there? The princess answered, Please, old woman, I did not mean to knock so loud. To this there came no reply. Then the princess knocked again, this time with her knuckles, and the voice came again, saying, Who is there? And the princess answered, Rosamond. Then a second time there was a 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 firwood 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 palace Rosamond had left, she felt no little satisfaction as she shut the door and looked around her. And what with the sufferings and terrors she had left outside, the new kind of tears she had shed, the love she had begun to feel for her parents, and the trust she had begun to place in the wise woman, it seemed to her as if her soul had grown larger of a sudden, and she had left the days of her childishness and naughtiness far behind her. People are so ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is changed. Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine day will be ill-tempered when it rains. Their selves are just the same both days, only in the one case the fine weather has got into them, in the other the rainy. Rosamond as she sat warming herself by the glow of the peat-fire, turning over in her mind all that had passed, and feeling how pleasant the change in her feelings was, began by degrees to think how very good she had grown, and how very good she was to have grown good, and how extremely good she must always have been that she was able to grow so very good as she now felt she had grown, and she became so absorbed in her self-admiration as never to notice either that the fire was dying or that a heap of fur-combs 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 upon the embers. The moon was swallowed up, and there was darkness all about her. Then a flash of lightning followed by a peel of thunder so terrified the princess that she cried aloud for the old woman. But there came no answer to her cry. Then in her terror the princess grew angry, and saying to herself, she must be somewhere in the place else who was there to open the door to me, began to shout and yell and call the wise woman all the bad names she had been in the habit of throwing at her nurses. But there came not a single sound in reply. Strange to say the princess never thought of telling herself how naughty she was, though that would surely have been reasonable. On the contrary she thought she had a perfect right to be angry, for was she not most desperately ill-used, and a princess too? But the wind howled on, and the rain kept pouring down the chimney, and every now and then the lightning burst out, and the thunder rushed after it as if the great lumbering sound could ever think to catch up with the swift light. At length the princess had again grown so angry, frightened, and miserable altogether that she jumped up and hurried about the cottage with outstretched arms, trying to find the wise woman. But being in a bad temper always makes people stupid, and presently she struck her forehead such a blow against something, she thought herself it felt like the old woman's cloak, that she fell back, not on the floor though, but on the patch of heather, which felt as soft and pleasant as any bed in the palace. There worn out with weeping and rage she soon fell fast asleep. She dreamed that she was the old cold woman up in the sky, with no home and no friends, and no nothing at all, not even a pocket. Wandering, wandering forever, over a desert of blue sand, never to get anywhere and never to lie down or die. It was no use stopping to look about her, for what had she to do but forever look about her as she went on and on and on, never seeing 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 her, she threw her arms around her neck and held up her mouth to be kissed. And the kiss of the wise woman was like the rose gardens of Damascus. End of Chapter 3, Recording by Mimi. Chapter 4 of The Last Princess. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tiffany Dew. The Last Princess by George MacDonald, Chapter 4. The wise woman lifted her tenderly and washed and dressed her far more carefully than even her nurse. Then she set her down by the fire and prepared her breakfast. The princess was very hungry and the bread and milk as good as it could be so that she thought she had never in her life eaten 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 ogreess after all. Thereupon she laid down her spoon and would not eat another mouthful, only followed the basin with longing looks as a 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 any time and never would allow that guest to go to sleep upon anything that had no life in it. All the time she was thus busied, she spoke not a word to the princess, which with the princess went to confirm her notion of her purposes, but whatever she might have said would have been only perverted by the princess into yet stronger proof of her evil designs, for her fancy in her own head would outweigh any multitude of facts in another's. She kept staring at the fire and never looked around to see what the wise woman might be doing. By and by, she came close up to the back of her chair and said, Rosemond, but the princess had fallen into one of her sulky moods and shut herself up with her own ugly somebody, so she never looked around or even answered the wise woman. Rosemond, she repeated, I'm going out. If you are a good girl, that is, if you do as I tell you, I will carry you back to your father and mother the moment I return. The princess did not take the least notice. Look at me, Rosemond, said the wise woman. But Rosemond never moved, never even shrugged her shoulders, perhaps because they were already up to her ears and could go no farther. I want to help you to do what I tell you, said the wise woman. Look at me. Still, Rosemond 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, Rosemond. Have you forgotten how you kissed me this morning? But Rosemond not regarded that little throb of affection as a momentary weakness into which the deceitful ogreess had betrayed her and almost despised herself for it. She was one of those who, the more they are coaxed, are the more disagreeable. For such, the wise woman had an awful punishment. But she remembered that the princess had been very ill brought up and therefore wished to try her with all gentleness first. She stood silent for a moment to see what effect her words might have. But Rosemond 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 around her neck, and kissed her. Well, said the wise woman gently. After pausing as long as it seemed possible, she might be thank herself. I must tell you then without, only whoever listens with her back turned listens but half and gets but half the help. She wants to fatten me, said the princess. You must keep the cottage tidy while I am out. When I come back, I must see the fire bright, the hearth swept, and the kettle boiling, no dust on the table or chairs. The windows clear, the floor clean, and the heather and blossom, which last comes of sprinkling it with water three times a day. When you are hungry, put your hand into that hole in the wall, and you will find a meal. She wants to fatten me, said the princess. But on no account leave the house till I come back, continued the wise woman. Or you will grievously repent it. Remember what you have already gone through to reach it. Dangers lie all around this cottage of mine, but inside it is the safest place, in fact, the only quite safe place in all the country. She means to eat me, said the princess, and therefore wants to frighten me from running away. She heard the voice no more. Then, suddenly, startled at the thought of being alone, she looked hastily over her shoulder. The cottage was indeed empty of all visible life. It was soundless, too. There was not even a ticking clock or a flapping flame. The fire burned still and smoldering 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 pigsty, she said, where is the use of keeping such a hovel clean? But in truth, she would have been glad of the employment, only just because she had been told to do it, she was unwilling, for there are people, however unlikely it may seem, who object to doing a thing for no other reason than that it is required of them. I am a princess, she said, and it was very improper to ask me to do such a thing. She might have judged it quite as suitable for a princess to sweep away the dust as to sit the center 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 said on, watching the fire is 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 whole of the wall. But when she put in her hand, she found nothing there, except the dust which she ought by this time to have wiped away, never reflecting that the wise woman had told her she would find food there when she was hungry. She flew into one of her theories, calling her a cheat, and a thief, and a liar, and an ugly old witch, and an ogreess, and I do not know how many wicked names besides. She raged until she was quite exhausted and then fell fast asleep on her chair. When she awoke, the fire was out. By this time, she was hungry, but without looking in the hole, she began again to storm at the wise woman, in which labor she would no doubt have once more exhausted herself, had not something white caught her eye. It was the corner of a napkin hanging from the hole in the wall. She bound it to it, and there was a dinner for her of something strangely good, one of her favorite dishes, only better than she had ever tasted it before. This might surely have at least changed her mood towards the wise woman, but she only grumbled to herself that it was as it ought to be, ate up the food, and lay down on the bed, never thinking of fire or dust or water for the heather. The wind began to moan about the college 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 awoke till the wind had sunk to a silence. One of the consequences, however, of sleeping when one ought to be awake is waking when one ought to be asleep, and the princess awoke in the black midnight and found enough to keep her awake. For although the wind had fallen, there was a far more terrible howling than that of the wildest wind all about the cottage. Nor was the howling all, the air was full of strange cries, and everywhere she heard the noise of claws scratching against the house, which seemed all doors and windows so crowded where there sounds and from so many directions. All the night long she lay half sooning yet listening to the hideous noises, but with the first glimmer of morning they ceased. Then she said to herself, how fortunate it was that I awoke. They would have eaten me up if I had been asleep. The miserable little wretch actually talked as if she had kept them out. 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 done fields of the night. They were neither wolves nor hyenas, which had caused her such dismay, but creatures of the air more frightful still, which as soon as the smoke of the burning fur would cease 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 fur cone, which looked like solid gold red hot, and which although it might easily get covered up with ashes, so as to be quite invisible, was continually in a glow, fit to kindle all the fur 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 delicious bread and milk ready for her in the whole of the wall. After she had eaten it, she felt comfortable and sat for a long time building castles in the air, till she was actually hungry again, without having done an atom of work. She ate again, and was idle again, and ate again. Then it grew dark, and she went trembling to bed, for now she remembered the horrors of the last night. This time she never slept at all, but spent the long hours in grievous terror, for the noises were worse than before. She vowed and would not pass another night in such a hateful haunted old shed for all the ugly women, witches and ogreses 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 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 a table, but the wood ashes flew about so that it seemed useless to attempt getting rid of them. And she sat down again to think what was to be done, but there is very little indeed to be done when we will not do that which we have to do. Her first thought now was to run away at once while the sun was high, and get through the forest before night came on. She fancied she could easily go back the way she had come, but the wise woman's traveler in the world can ever go back the way the wise woman has brought him. She got up and went to the door. It was locked. What could the old woman have meant by telling her not to leave the cottage? She was indignant. The wise woman had meant to make it difficult, but not impossible. Before the princess, however, could find the way out, bring it open, walk straight to the hearth, Rosamund immediately slid out, ran a little way, and then laid herself down in a long heather. End of Chapter 4, recording by Tiffany Dew. Chapter 5 of The Lost Princess This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Lost Princess by George MacDonald, Chapter 5 The wise woman walked straight up to the hearth, looked at the fire, looked at the bed, glanced around 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. Rosamund, come to me. All the wolves and hyenas, fast asleep in the wood, heard her voice and shivered in their dreams. No wonder, then, that the princess trembled and found herself compelled, she could not understand how, to obey the summons. She rose like the guilty thing she felt, for sook of herself the hiding place she had chosen and walked slowly forward. When she entered, she saw the wise woman on her knees building up the fire with fur-cones. Already the flame was climbing through the heap in all directions, crackling gently and sending a sweet aromatic odor through the dusty cottage. That is my part of the work, she said, rising, now you do yours. But first, let me remind you that if you had not put it off, you would be more pleasant than you can imagine now. Nor would you have found the time go wearily. You would neither have slept in the day and let the fire out, nor waked at night and heard the howling of the beast-birds. More than all, you would have been glad to see me when I came back and would have leaped into my arms instead of standing there looking so ugly and foolish. As she spoke, suddenly she held up before her eyes and couldn't see it at all, only the thing reflected in it. Rosamond saw a child with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly eyes, which, not daring to look forward, seemed trying to hide behind an impertinent nose, stooping shoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes and smears and stains everywhere. That was what she had made herself. And to tell the truth she was so shocked at the sight and immediately began in her dirty heart to lay the blame on the wise woman because she had taken her away from her nurses and her fine clothes. While all the time she knew well enough that close by the Heather-bed was the loveliest little well just big enough to wash in, the water of which was always springing fresh from the ground and running away through the wall. Beside it lay the whitest of linen towels with a comb made of mother of pearl and a brush of fur needles, any one of which she had been far too lazy to use. She dashed the glass out of the wise woman's hand and there it lay, broken into a thousand pieces. Without a word the wise woman stooped and gathered the fragments, did not leave searching until she had gathered the last atom, and she laid them all carefully one by one in the fire, now blazing high on the hearth. Then she stood up and looked at the princess who had been watching her sulkily. Rosaman, she said, with a countenance of bitterness, 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 shall you 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. She said the princess, turning her back to the house, for she was one who, even if she liked a thing before, would dislike it the moment any person and authority over her desired her to do it. When she looked again the wise woman had vanished. Thereupon the princess ran at once to the door and tried to open it, but open it would not. She searched on all sides but could discover no way of getting out. The windows would not open, at least she could not open them, and the only outlet seemed the chimney, which she prayed to try because of the fire, which looked so angry, she thought, and shot out green flames when she went near it. So she sat down to consider. One may well wonder what room for consideration there was with all her work lying undone behind her. She sat, thus however, considering, as she called it, until hunger began to sting her, when she jumped up and put her hand as usual in the whole of the wall. There was nothing there. She fell straight to one of her stupid rages but neither her hunger nor the hole in the wall heated her rage. Then, in a burst of self-pity, she fell a-weeping, but neither the hunger nor the hole cared for her tears. The darkness began to come on and her hunger grew and grew and the terror of the wild noises of the last night invaded her. Then she began to feel cold and saw that the fire was dying. She darted to the heap of cones and fed it. It blazed up cheerily and she was comforted a little. Then she thought with herself it would surely be better to give in so far and do a little work than die of hunger. So catching up a duster she began upon the table. The dust flew about and nearly choked her. She ran to the well to drink and was refreshed and encouraged. Perceiving now that it was a tedious plan to wipe the dust from the table onto the floor, whence it would have all to be swept up again, she got a wooden platter, wiped the floor, buried it to the fire and threw it in. But all the time she was getting more and more hungry and although she tried the hole again and again it was only to become more and more certain that work she must if she would eat. At length all the furniture was dusted and she began to sweep the floor which happily she thought of sprinkling with water as from the window she had seen them do to the marble court of the palace. That swept she rushed again to the hole but still no food. She was on the verge of another rage when the thought came that she might have forgotten something. To her dismay she found that table and chairs and everything was again covered with dust. Not so badly as before however. Again she set to work driven by hunger and drawn by the hope of eating and yet again after a second careful wiping sought the hole. But now nothing was there for her. What could it mean? Her asking this question was a sign of progress. It showed that she expected the wise woman to keep her word. Then she bethought her that she had forgotten the household utensils and the dishes and plates some of which wanted to be washed as well as dusted. Faint with hunger she set to work yet again. One thing made her think of another until at length she had cleaned everything she could think of. Now surely she must find some food in the hole. When this time also there was nothing she began once more to abuse the wise woman as false and treacherous. But ah! there was the bed unwatered. That was soon amended. Still no supper. Ah! there was the hearth unswept and the fire wanted making up. Still no supper. What else could there be? She was at her wit's end and in very weariness not laziness this time sat down and gazed into the fire. There, as she gazed she spied something brilliant shining even in the midst of the fire. It was the little mirror all whole again, but little she knew that the dust which she had thrown into the fire had helped to heal it. She drew it out carefully and looking into it saw not indeed the ugly creature she had seen there before but still a very dirty little animal whereupon she hurried to the well took off her clothes, plunged into it and washed herself clean. Then she brushed and combed her hair made her clothes as tidy as might be and ran to the hole in the wall. There was a huge basin of bread and milk. Never had she eaten 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. In the morning as she lay awake before getting up she spied what seemed a door behind the tall eight-day clock that stood silent in the corner. Ah, she thought, that must be the way out and got up instantly. The first thing she did, however, was to go to the hole in the wall. Nothing was there. Well, I am hardly used, she cried aloud, all that cleaning for the cross-old woman yesterday and this for my trouble, nothing for breakfast, not even a crust of bread. Does Mistress Ogre's fancy a princess will bear that? The poor foolish creature seemed to think that the work of one day ought to serve for the next day, too, but that is nowhere the way in the whole universe. How could there be a universe in that case? And even she never dreamed of applying the same rule to her breakfast. How good I was all yesterday, she said, and how hungry and ill-used I am today. But she would not be a slave and do over today what she had done only last night. She didn't care about her breakfast. She might have it, no doubt, if she dusted all the wretched place again, but she was not going to do that, at least, without seeing first what lay behind the clock. Off she darted, and putting her hand behind the clock found the latch of a door. It lifted, and the door opened a little way. By squeezing hard she managed to get behind the clock and so through the door. But how she stared when instead of the open heath she found herself on the marble floor of a large and stately room lighted only from above. Its walls were strengthened by pilasters, and in every space between was a large picture from cornice to floor. She did not know what to make of it. Surely she had run all around the cottage and certainly had seen nothing of this size near it. She forgot that she had also run round what she took for a haymow, 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 ogrece after all and lives in a palace, though she pretends it's only a cottage to keep people from suspecting that she eats good little children like me. Had the Princess been tolerably tractable she would by this time have known a good deal about the wise woman's beautiful house, whereas she had never till now got farther than the porch. Neither was she at all in its innermost places now. But King's daughter as she was she was not a little daunted when stepping forward from the recess of the door she saw what a great lordly haul it was. She dared hardly look to the other end it seemed so far off. So she began to gaze at the things near her and the pictures first of all for she had a great liking for pictures. One in particular attracted her attention. She came back to it several times and at length stood absorbed in it. A blue summer sky with white fleecy clouds floating beneath it hung over a hill green to the very top and alive with streams darting down its sides towards 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 trying to reach her hand to lick it. Oh how I wish I were that little girl said the princess aloud. I wonder how it is that some people are made to be so much happier than others. If I were that little girl no one would ever call me naughty. She gazed and gazed at the picture. At length she said to herself I do not believe it is a picture. It is the real country the real hill and a real little girl upon it. I shall soon see whether this isn't another of the old witch's cheats. She went close up to the picture lifted her foot and stepped over the frame. I am free, I am free! she exclaimed and she felt the wind upon her cheek. The sound of a closing door struck on her ear. She turned and there was a blank wall without door or window behind her. The hill with the sheep was before her and she set out at once to reach it. Now if I am asked how this could be I can only answer that it was a result of the interaction of things outside and things inside of the wise woman's skill and the silly child's folly. If this does not satisfy my questioner I can only add that the wise woman was able to do far more wonderful things than this. Chapter 6 of The Lost Princess This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Lost Princess by George MacDonald Chapter 6 Meantime the wise woman was busy as she always was and her business now was with the child of the shepherd and shepherdess away in the north. Her name was Agnes. Her father and mother were poor and could not give her many things. Rosamond would have utterly despised the rude, simple plaything she had. Yet in one respect they were of more value far than hers. The king bought Rosamond's with his money. Agnes's father made hers with his hands. And while Agnes had but few things not seeing many things about her and not even knowing that there were many things anywhere she did not wish for many things and was therefore neither covetous nor avaricious. She played with the toys her father made her and thought them the most wonderful things in the world. Windmills and little crooks and water wheels and sometimes lambs made all of wool and dolls made out of the leg bones of sheep which her mother dressed for her and of such playthings she was never tired. Sometimes however she preferred playing with stones which were plentiful and flowers which were few or the brooks that ran down the hill of which although there were many she could only play with one at a time and that indeed troubled her a little or live lambs that were not all wool or the sheep dogs which were very friendly with her and the best of playfellows as she thought for she had no human ones to compare them with. Neither was she greedy after nice things but content as well she might be with the home we 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 all together impertinent and rude things done by their child they thought so clever laughing at them as something quite marvelous her commonplace speeches were said over again as if they had been the finest poetry and the pretty ways which every moderately good child has were extolled as if the result of her excellent taste and the choice of her judgment and will. They would even say sometimes that she ought not to hear her own praises for fear it should make her vain and then whisper them behind their hands but so loud that she could not fail to hear every word the consequence was that she soon came to believe so soon that she could not recall the time when she did not believe as the most absolute fact in the universe that she was somebody that is she became most immoderately conceited now as the least Adam of conceit is a thing to be ashamed of you may fancy what she was like with such a quantity of it inside her at first it did not show itself outside in any very active form but the wise woman had been to the cottage and had seen her sitting alone with such a smile of self-satisfaction upon her faces 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 their creeping thing coiled up at the heart of them only her worm had a face and shape that were the very image of her own and she looked so simpering and mawkish and self-conscious and silly that she made the wise woman feel rather sick not that the child was a fool had she been the wise woman would have only pitied and loved her instead of feeling sick when she looked at her she had very fair abilities and were she once but made humble would be capable not only of doing a good deal in time but of beginning at once to grow to no end but if she were not made humble her growing would be to a mass of distorted shapes all huddled together so that although the body she now showed might grow up straight and well-shaped and comely to behold the new body that was growing inside of it and would come out of it when she died would be ugly and crooked this way in that like an aged hawthorne that has lived hundreds of years exposed upon all sides to salty winds as time went on this disease of self-conceit went on too 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 worse than defeats and to overcome an angel too gentle to put out all his strength and ride away in triumph on the back of a devil is one of the poorest so long as she was left to take her own way and do as she would she gave her parents little trouble she would play about by herself in the little garden with its few hardy flowers or amongst the heather where the bees were busy or she would wander away amongst the hills and be nobody knew where sometimes from morning to night nor did her parents venture to find fault with her she never went into rages like the princess and would have thought Rosamond oh so ugly and vile if she had seen her in one of her passions but she was no better for all that and was quite as ugly in the eyes of the wise woman who could not only see but read her face what is there to choose between a face distorted to hidden and one distorted to silliness by self complacency true there is more hope of helping the angry child out of her form of selfishness than the conceded child out of hers but on the other hand the conceded child was not so terrible or dangerous as the wrathful one the conceded one however was sometimes very angry and then her anger was more spiteful than the others and again the wrathful one was often very conceded too so that on the whole of two very unpleasant creatures I would say that the king's daughter would have been the worst had not the shepherds been quite as bad but as I have said the wise woman had her eye upon her she saw that something special must be done else she would be one of those who kneel to their own shadows to feed her to kneel to their own shadows to feet grow on their knees then go down on their hands till their hands grow into feet then lay their faces on the ground till they grow into snouts when at last they are a hideous sort of lizards each of which believes himself the best wisest and loveliest being in the world yay the very center of the universe and so they run about forever looking for their own shadows that they may worship them and miserable because they cannot find them being themselves too near the ground to have any shadows and what becomes of them at last there is but one who knows the wise woman therefore one day walked up to the door of the shepherd's cottage dressed like a poor woman and asked for a drink of water the shepherd's wife looked at her liked her and brought her a cup of milk the wise woman took it and ruled to accept every kindness that was offered her Agnes was not by nature a greedy girl as I have said but self-conceit will go far to generate every other vice under the sun vanity which is a form of self-conceit has repeatedly shown itself as the deepest feeling in the heart of a horrible murderous that morning at breakfast her mother had stinted her a milk just a little like 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 draft of water and accept a draft of milk without being a beggar in any such sense as Agnes's contemptuous use of the word implied a cloud came upon her forehead and a double vertical wrinkle settled over her nose the wise woman saw it for all her business was with Agnes though she little knew it and rising went and offered the cup to the child where she sat with her knitting in a corner Agnes looked at it did not want it was inclined to refuse it from a beggar but thinking it would show her consequence to assert her rights took it and drank it up for whoever is possessed by a devil judges with the mind of that devil and hence Agnes was guilty of such a meanness as many who are themselves capable of something just as bad will consider incredible the wise woman waited till she had finished it then looking into the empty cup said you might have given me back as much as you had no claim upon Agnes turned away and made no answer far less from shame the wise woman looked at the mother you should not have offered it to her if you did not mean her to have it said the mother siding with the devil in her child against the wise woman and her child too some foolish people think they take another's part when they take the part he takes the wise woman said nothing but fixed her eyes upon her and soon the mother hit her face in her apron weeping she turned again to Agnes who had never looked round but sat with her back to both and suddenly lapped her in the folds of her cloak when the mother again lifted her eyes she had vanished never supposing she had carried away her child but uncomfortable because of what she had said to the poor woman the mother went to the door and called after her as she toiled slowly up the hill but she never turned her head and the mother went back into her cottage the wise woman walked close past the shepherd and his dogs and through the midst of his flock of sheep the shepherd wondered where she could be going right up the hill there was something strange about her too he thought and he followed her with his eyes as she went up and up it was near sunset and as the sun went down a grey 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 to seek their child morning came and they had not found her then the whole countryside arose to search for the missing Agnes but day after day and night after night passed and nothing was discovered of or concerning her until at length all gave up the search and despair except the mother although she was nearly convinced now that the poor woman had carried her off one day she had wandered some distance from her cottage thinking she might come upon the remains of her daughter at the foot of some cliff when she came suddenly instead upon a disconsolate looking creature sitting on a stone by the side of a stream her hair hung in tangles from her head her clothes were tattered and through the rents her skin showed in many places her cheeks were white and worn thin with hunger the hollows were dark under her eyes and they stood out scared and wild when she caught sight of the shepherd as she jumped to her feet and would have run away but fell down in a faint at first sight the mother had taken her for her own child but now she saw with a pang of disappointment that she had been mistaken full of compassion nevertheless she said to herself if she is not my Agnes she is as much in need of help as if she were if I cannot be good to my own I will be as good as I can to some other women 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 and of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Lost Princess This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rebecca Case The Lost Princess by George McDonald Chapter 7 Notwithstanding the differences between the two girls which were, indeed, so many that most people would have said they were not in the least alike they were the same in this that each cared more for her own fancies and desires than for 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 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 the show Agnes on the contrary seldom changed her mood but kept that of calm assured self-satisfaction father nor mother had ever by wise punishment helped her to gain a victory over herself and do what she did not like or choose and their folly in reasoning with one unreasonable had fixed her in her conceit she would actually nod her head to herself in complacent pride that she had stood out against them this however was not so difficult as to justify even the pride of having conquered seeing she loved them so little and paid so little attention to the arguments and persuasions they used neither when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman's cloak did she behave in the least like the princess for she was not afraid she'll set me down she said too self-important to suppose that anyone would dare do her 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 ogre or wolf and her mother had never carried out one of her threats of punishment if the wise woman had but pinched her she would have shown herself an abject little coward trembling with fear at every change of motion so long as she was carried 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 that was nowhere else in the wide world it was a great hollow sphere made of a substance similar to that of the mirror which Rosamond had broken but differently compounded that substance no one could see by itself it had neither door nor window nor any opening to break its perfect roundness the wise woman carried Agnes into a dark room there undressed her took from her hand her knitting needles naked as she was born into the hollow sphere what sort of a place it was she could not tell she could see nothing but a faint cold bluish light all about her she could not feel that 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 too important and indeed it was but this she had cared only for somebody and now she was going to have only somebody her own choice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her than she would have knowingly carried it for herself after sitting a while she wished she had something to do but nothing came a little longer and it grew wearisome she would see whether she could not walk out surrounded her walk she found she could well enough but walk out she could not on and on she went keeping as much in a straight line as she might but after walking until she was thoroughly tired she found herself no nearer out of her prison than before she had not indeed advanced a single step for in whatever direction she tried to go the sphere turned round and round answering her feet accordingly like a squirrel in his cage she but kept placing another spot of the cunningly suspended sphere under her feet and she would have then 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 underfoot nothing on either hand but the same pale faint blueish glimmer she wept at last then grew very angry and then sullen but nobody heeded whether she cried or laughed it was all the same to the cold unmoving twilight that rounded her on and on went the dreary hours or did they go at all no change no pause no hope on and on till she felt she was forgotten and then she grew strangely still and fell asleep the moment she was asleep the wise woman came lifted her out and laid her in her bosom fed her with a wonderful milk which she received without knowing it nursed her all the night long and just as she woke laid her back in the blue sphere again when first she came to herself she thought the horrors of the pre-seeing 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 and believed it or twenty minutes it would have been all the same except for weariness time was for her no more another night came and another still during both of which the wise woman nursed and fed her but she knew nothing of that and the same one dreary day seemed ever brooding over her all at once on the third day she proceeded beside her but there was something about the child that made her shudder she never looked at Agnes but sat with her chin sunk on her chest her eyes staring at her own toes she was the color of pale earth with a pinched nose and a mere slit in her face for a mouth how ugly she is thought Agnes what business has she beside me but it was so lonely she was so mad 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 then Agnes thought she was mocking her and said you are ugly and the little girl said you are ugly then Agnes lost her temper and put out her hands to seize the little girl but lo the little girl was gone and she found herself tugging at her own hair she let go and there was the little girl again Agnes was furious now and flew at her to bite her but she found her teeth in her own arm and the little girl was gone only to return again and each time she came back she was tenfold uglier than before and now Agnes hated her with her whole heart the moment she hated her it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust that the child was not another but herself her somebody and that she was now shut up with her forever and ever no more for one moment ever to be alone and her agony of despair sleep descended and she slept when she woke there was the little girl heedless, ugly, miserable staring at her own toes all at once the creature began to smile but with such an odious self-satisfied expression that Agnes felt ashamed of seeing her and she began to pat her own cheeks to stroke her own body and examine her finger ends knotting 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 so long as she could remember inside of her she turned sick at herself probably have been put out of existence but for three days the odious companionship went on by the third day Agnes was not merely sick but ashamed of the life she had hitherto led was despicable in her own eyes and astonished that she had never seen the truth concerning herself before the next morning she woke in the arms of the wise woman the horror had vanished from her sight and two heavenly eyes were gazing upon her she wept and clung to her and the more she clung the more tenderly did the great strong arms close around her when she had lain thus for a while the wise woman carried her into her cottage and washed her in a little well then dressed her in clean garments and gave her bread and milk when she had eaten it she called her to her and said very solemnly Agnes you must not imagine you are cured that you are ashamed of yourself now is no sign that the cause for such shame has ceased in new circumstances especially after you have done well for a while you will be in danger of thinking just as much of yourself as before so beware of yourself I'm going from home and leave you in charge of the house do just as I tell you till my return then she gave her the same directions she had formally 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 End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Lost Princess This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Cheryl Martin The Lost Princess by George MacDonald Chapter 8 As soon as she was left alone Agnes set to work tidying and dusting the cottage made up the fire, watered the bed and cleaned the inside of the windows the wise woman herself always kept the outside of them clean when she had done dinner of the same short 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 oldest position had begun to rouse again she had been doing her duty and had in consequence begun again to think herself somebody however strange it may well seem to do one's duty will make anyone conceded who only does it sometimes those who do it always would as soon think of being conceded 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 conceded 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 conceded of not being contemptible until our duty becomes to as common as breathing we are poor creatures so Agnes began to stroke herself once more forgetting her late self-stroking companion and never reflecting that she was now doing what she had then abhorred and in this mood she went into the picture gallery the first picture she saw represented a square in a great city one side of which was occupied by a splendid marble palace with great flights of broad steps leading up to the door between it and the square was a marble paved court with gates of brass at which stood centuries in gorgeous uniforms and to which was affixed the following proclamation in letters of gold large enough for Agnes to read by the will of the king from this time until further notice every stray child found in the realm shall be brought without a moment's delay to the palace whoever shall be found having done otherwise shall straight away lose his head by the hand of the public executioner Agnes's heart beat loud and her face flushed can there be such a city in the world she said to herself if I only knew where it was I should sit 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 Rosamund it was the very country where her father fed his flocks just round the shoulder of the hill was the cottage where her parents lived where she was born and whence she had been carried by the beggar woman ah she said they didn't know me there they little thought what I could be if I had the chance if I were but in this good kind loving generous king's palace I should soon be such a great lady as they never saw then they would understand what a good little girl I had always been and I shouldn't forget my poor parents like some I have read of I would be generous I should never be selfish and proud like girls in story books as she said this she turned her back with disdain upon the picture of her home and settling herself before the picture of the palace stared at it with wide ambitious eyes and a heart whose every beat was a throb of arrogant self-esteem the shepherd child was now worse than ever the poor princess had been for the wise woman had given her a terrible lesson one of which the princess was not capable and she had known what it meant yet here she was as bad as ever therefore worse than before the ugly creature whose presence had made her so miserable had indeed crept out of sight and mine too but where was she? nestling in her very heart where most of all she had her company and least of all could see her the wise woman had called her out that Agnes might see what sort of creature she was herself but now she was snug in her soul's bed again and she did not even suspect she was there after gazing a while at the palace picture during which her ambitious pride rose and rose she turned yet again in condescending mood and honored the home picture with one stare more what a poor miserable spot it is compared with this lordly palace she said but presently she spied something in it she had not seen before and drew nearer it was the form of a little girl building a bridge of stones over one of the hillbrooks 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 palace I declare I can see the smoke of the cottage rising from behind the hill what a dull dirty insignificant spot it is and what a life to lead there she turned once more to the city picture and now a strange thing took place in proportion as the other to the eyes of her mind receded into the background this to her present bodily eyes appeared to come forward and assume reality at last after it had been in this way growing upon her for some time she gave a cry of conviction and said aloud I do believe it is real that frame is only a trick of the woman to make me fancy it at 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 around the place and examining her work she fixed her eyes upon Agnes in a way that confused her and made her cast hers down for she felt as if she were reading her thoughts the wise woman however asked no questions but began to talk about her work approving of some of it which filled her with arrogance and showing how some of it might have been done better which filled her with resentment but the wise woman seemed to take no care of what she might be thinking and went straight on with her lesson by the time it was over the power of reading thoughts would not have been necessary to a knowledge of what was in the mind of Agnes all come to the surface that is up into her face which is the surface of the mind ere it had time to sink down again the wise woman caught up the little mirror and held it before her Agnes saw her somebody the very embodiment of miserable conceit and ugly ill temper she gave such a scream of horror that the wise woman pitied her and laying aside the mirror took her upon her knees she talked to her most kindly and solemnly in particular about the necessity of destroying the ugly things that come out of the heart so ugly that they make the very face over them ugly also and what was Agnes doing all the time the wise woman was talking to her would you believe it instead of thinking how to kill the ugly things in her heart she was with all her might resolving to be more careful of her face it is to keep down the things in her heart so that they should not show in her face she was resolving to be a hypocrite as well as a self-worshipper her heart was wormy and the worms were eating very fast at it now then the wise woman laid her gently down upon the heather bed and she fell fast asleep and had an awful dream about her somebody when she woke in the morning instead of getting up to do the work of the house she lay thinking to evil purpose in place of taking her dream as a warning and thinking over what the wise woman had said the night before she communed with herself in this fashion if I stay here longer I shall be miserable it's 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 the rightful 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 witches and she ought to do it herself she jumped out of bed and hurried on her 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 proclamation 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 she 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 hit 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 away on the horizon without once turning to take a farewell look of 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