mia,
where Camillo lived from that time in the king's court, and became the
chief friend and favourite of Polixenes.

The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went
to the queen's apartment, where the good lady was sitting with her
little son Mamillius, who was just beginning to tell one of his best
stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking the
child away, sent Hermione to prison.

Mamillius, though but a very young child, loved his mother tenderly;
and when he saw her so dishonoured, and found she was taken from him to
be put into a prison, he took it deeply to heart, and drooped and pined
away by slow degrees, losing his appetite and his sleep, till it was
thought his grief would kill him.

The king, when he had sent his queen to prison, commanded Cleomenes and
Dion, two Sicilian lords, to go to Delphos, there to inquire of the
oracle at the temple of Apollo, if his queen had been unfaithful to
him. When Hermione had been a short time in prison, she was brought to
bed of a daughter; and the poor lady received much comfort from the
sight of her pretty baby, and she said to it: 'My poor little prisoner,
I am as innocent as you are.'

Hermione had a kind friend in the noble-spirited Paulina, who was the
wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord; and when the lady Paulina heard her
royal mistress was brought to bed, she went to the prison where
Hermione was confined; and she said to Emilia, a lady who attended upon
Hermione: 'I pray you, Emilia, tell the good queen, if her majesty dare
trust me with her little babe, I will carry it to the king, its father;
we do not know how he may soften at the sight of his innocent child.'
'Most worthy madam,' replied Emilia, 'I will acquaint the queen with
your noble offer; she was wishing to-day that she had any friend who
would venture to present the child to the king.' 'And tell her,' said
Paulina, 'that I will speak boldly to Leontes in her defence.' 'May you
be for ever blessed,' said Emilia, 'for your kindness to our gracious
queen!' Emilia then went to Hermione, who joyfully gave up her baby to
the care of Paulina, for she had feared that no one would dare venture
to present the child to its father.

Paulina took the new-born infant, and forcing herself into the king's
presence, notwithstanding her husband, fearing the king's anger,
endeavoured to prevent her, she laid the babe at its father's feet, and
Paulina made a noble speech to