"I say, 'You darling!' and throw it away and there it is."

"Where do you get them?"

"In my lap."

"I wish you would let me throw one away."

"Have you got any in your lap? Let me see."

"No; I have none."

"Then you can't throw one away, if you haven't got one."

"You are mocking me!" cried the princess.

"I am not mocking you," said the child, looking her full in the face,
with reproach in her large blue eyes.

"Oh, that's where the flowers come from!" said the princess to herself,
the moment she saw them, hardly knowing what she meant.

Then the child rose as if hurt, and quickly threw away all the flowers
she had in her lap, but one by one, and without any sign of anger. When
they were all gone, she stood a moment, and then, in a kind of chanting
cry, called, two or three times, "Peggy! Peggy! Peggy!"

A low, glad cry, like the whinny of a horse, answered, and, presently,
out of the wood on the opposite side of the glade, came gently trotting
the loveliest little snow-white pony, with great shining blue wings,
half-lifted from his shoulders. Straight towards the little girl,
neither hurrying nor lingering, he trotted with light elastic tread.

Rosamond's love for animals broke into a perfect passion of delight at
the vision. She rushed to meet the pony with such haste, that, although
clearly the best trained animal under the sun, he started back,
plunged, reared, and struck out with his fore-feet ere he had time to
observe what sort of a creature it was that had so startled him. When
he perceived it was a little girl, he dropped instantly upon all fours,
and content with avoiding her, resumed his quiet trot in the direction
of his mistress. Rosamond stood gazing after him in miserable
disappointment.

When he reached the child, he laid his head on her shoulder, and she
put her arm up round his neck; and after she had talked to him a
little, he turned and came trotting back to the princess.

Almost beside herself with joy, she began caressing him in the rough
way which, not-withstanding her love for them, she was in the habit of
using with animals; and she was not gentle enough, in herself even, to
see that he did not like it, and was only putting up with it for the
sake of his mistress. But when, that she might jump upon his back, she
laid hold of one of his wings, and ruffled some of the blue feathers,
he wheeled suddenly about, gave his long tail a sharp whisk which threw
her flat on the grass, a