Belinda sat down, and she began to cry.

[Illustration: "HE ... STOOD WITH HIS HAT IN HIS HAND."]

III.

Belinda cried for half an hour without stopping, and her eyes were
swollen up, and her cheeks wet with tears. Some one was standing by her,
and a voice was saying--

"Why are you crying, little girl, I pray,
On such a pleasant sunny summer day?
I'm a little packman, with my funny pack.
Such a weight! oh, such a weight! to carry on my back.
What will you buy, maiden? what will you buy?
Half a dozen handkerchiefs, to wipe your cheeks quite dry?"

Belinda looked up, and in her surprise left off crying. Before her stood
a small boy with a bundle of wheat over his shoulder. He looked tired
and melancholy, and not by any means as jovial as might have been
expected from his words.

"Handkerchiefs!" said Belinda, disdainfully. "Why, you've nothing but a
wisp of straw over your shoulder, and it can't be any weight."

"Try it," said the boy, throwing it down upon the ground.

But Belinda took no notice of it.

"And you're not a packman, only a little boy," she said, angrily; "how
can you tell such stories?"

The melancholy-looking boy answered--

"Perhaps I'm a king in disguise,
Although of a very small size;
If you were a little more wise,
You might find in my pack a great prize.

However, I'll leave it for you, and the first young gentleman you meet
with will, perhaps, pick it up and carry it home for you; for you will
soon find you are not able to lift it yourself."

And so saying the boy turned away, and Belinda was again alone.

"Not lift a few ears of corn," she said, giving a slight kick to the
heap at her feet.

But as her foot touched it it was no longer a bundle of wheat, but a
sack tied close at the mouth, and it expanded until it was as large as
Belinda herself. Added to which there appeared to be something alive in
it, for it moved from side to side as though some creature were
struggling inside.

"Oh! perhaps it is Blanche!" exclaimed Belinda, "and the boy has brought
her back. He said 'a great prize,' and a king in disguise. He may have
been a fairy, who can tell?"

And she tried to open the sack, but to no purpose, for she only tore
her fingers and made them bleed, and the blood dropped down on her frock
and stained it, and she grew very hot.

There was a glassy pool close by, so she knelt down and bathed her hands
and face; and as she rose up she caught sight of