upon the brazen gates of this palace?"

"A poor shepherd, your majesty--how often must he leave his flock, and
go hundreds of miles to look whether there may not be something in
letters of gold upon the brazen gates? We did not know that your
majesty had made a proclamation, or even that the princess was lost."

"You ought to have known," said the king.

The shepherd held his peace.

"But," said the queen, taking up the word, "all that is as nothing,
when I think how you misused the darling."

The only ground the queen had for saying thus, was what Agnes had told
her as to how the princess was dressed; and her condition seemed to the
queen so miserable, that she had imagined all sorts of oppression and
cruelty.

But this was more than the shepherdess, who had not yet spoken, could
bear.

"She would have been dead, and NOT buried, long ago, madam, if I had
not carried her home in my two arms."

"Why does she say her TWO arms?" said the king to himself. "Has she
more than two? Is there treason in that?"

"You dressed her in cast-off clothes," said the queen.

"I dressed her in my own sweet child's Sunday clothes. And this is what
I get for it!" cried the shepherdess, bursting into tears.

"And what did you do with the clothes you took off her? Sell them?"

"Put them in the fire, madam. They were not fit for the poorest child
in the mountains. They were so ragged that you could see her skin
through them in twenty different places."

"You cruel woman, to torture a mother's feelings so!" cried the queen,
and in her turn burst into tears.

"And I'm sure," sobbed the shepherdess, "I took every pains to teach
her what it was right for her to know. I taught her to tidy the house
and"--

"Tidy the house!" moaned the queen. "My poor wretched offspring!"

"And peel the potatoes, and"--

"Peel the potatoes!" cried the queen. "Oh, horror!"

"And black her master's boots," said the shepherdess.

"Black her master's boots!" shrieked the queen. "Oh, my white-handed
princess! Oh, my ruined baby!"

"What I want to know," said the king, paying no heed to this maternal
duel, but patting the top of his sceptre as if it had been the hilt of
a sword which he was about to draw, "is, where the princess is now."

The shepherd made no answer, for he had nothing to say more than he had
said already.

"You have murdered her!" shouted the king. "You shall be tortured till
you confess the truth; and then you shall be tortu