grossed all his thoughts.
She seemed to remind him of his fair queen Hermione, and he broke out
into bitter self-accusation, saying that he might have had just such
another lovely maiden to call him father, but for his own cruelty.

The shepherd, listening to the king's lamentations, began to compare
the time when he had lost the royal infant with the time when Perdita
was found, and he came to the conclusion that she and the daughter of
Leontes were one and the same person. When he felt assured of this he
told his tale, showed the rich mantle which had been wrapped round the
infant, and her remaining jewels; and Leontes knew that his daughter
was brought back to him once more. Joyful as such tidings were, his
sorrow at the thought of Hermione, who had not lived to behold her
child thus grown into a fair maiden, almost exceeded his happiness, so
that he kept exclaiming, "Oh, thy mother! thy mother!"

Paulina now appeared, begging Leontes to go to her house and look at a
statue she possessed which greatly resembled Hermione. Anxious to see
anything like his much-lamented wife, the king agreed; and when the
curtain was drawn back his sorrow was stirred afresh. At last he said
that the statue gave Hermione a more aged, wrinkled look than when he
last beheld her; but Paulina replied, that if so, it was a proof of the
sculptor's art, who represented the queen as she would appear after the
sixteen years which had passed. She would have drawn the curtain
again, but Leontes begged her to wait a while, and again he appealed to
those about him to say if it was not indeed a marvelous likeness.

Perdita had all the while been kneeling, admiring in silence her
beautiful mother. Paulina presently said that she possessed the power
to make the statue move, if such were the king's pleasure; and as some
soft music was heard, the figure stirred. Ah! it was no sculptured
marble, but Hermione, living and breathing, who hung upon her husband
and her long-lost child!

It is needless to tell that Paulina's story of her royal mistress'
death was an invention to save her life, and that for all those years
she had kept the queen secluded, so that Leontes should not hear that
she was living until Perdita was found.

All was happiness; but none was greater than that of Camillo and
Paulina, who saw the reward of their long faithfulness. One more
person was to arrive upon the scene; even Polixenes, who came in search
of Florizel, and was