haired woman looking at
her. Then she shrieked, and flung the mirror on the ground, and rushed
out of her palace into the wide world. And wherever she went she cried,
"I am the beautiful princess! Look at me and see my beauty; for I will
show it to you now!" But nobody looked at her, for she was withered and
ugly; and nobody cared for her, because she was selfish and vain. So she
made no more difference in the world than she had made before. But the
rose is blossoming still, and fills the air with its sweetness.

* * * * *

"My Pink," said Hildegarde, tenderly, as she walked beside her friend's
chair on their homeward way, "you are shut up like the princess; but
instead of the rose stealing your sweetness, you have stolen the
sweetness of all the roses, and taken it into your prison with you."

"I 'shut up,' Hilda?" cried Pink, opening wide eyes of wonder and
reproach. "Do you call _this_ being shut up? See what I have had to-day!
Enough pleasure to think about for a year. And even without it,--even
before you came, Hilda,--why, I am the happiest girl in the world, and I
ought to be."

Hildegarde stooped and kissed the pale forehead. "Yes, dear, I think you
are," she said; "but I should like you to have all the pleasant and
bright and lovely things in the world, my Pink."

"Well, I have the best of them," said Pink Chirk, smiling
brightly,--"home and love, and friends and flowers. And as for the rest,
why, dear Hilda, what _is_ the use in thinking about things one has
not?"

After this, which was part of Pink's little code of philosophy, she fell
a-musing happily, while Hilda walked beside her in a kind of silent
rage, almost hating herself for the fulness of vigor, the superabundant
health and buoyancy, which she felt in every limb. She looked sidelong
at the transparent cheek, the wasted frame, the unearthly radiance of
the blue eyes. This girl was just her own age, and had never walked! It
could not, it _must_ not, be so always. Thoughts thronged into her mind
of the great New York physicians and the wonders they had wrought. Might
it not be possible? Could not something be done? The blood coursed more
quickly through her veins, and she laid her hand on that of the crippled
girl with a sudden impulse of protection and tenderness.

Pink Chirk looked up with a wondering smile. "Why, Hildegarde," she
said, "you look like the British warrior queen you told me about
yesterday. I was