tle girl as to break my word for
anything I'm going always to keep it, and tortures, even the
Inquisition, and even the rack, wouldn't get it out of me. Did you
ever hear of the rack, Mr. Dove? but perhaps you had better not know.
Yes, I'll always keep my word, the word that I promised, and no one
shall ever know about you and me and the sticky sweetmeats; but I
won't keep the word that I didn't promise. You remember how you wanted
me to give you another word that I'd always stay here, and keep
Primrose and Jasmine here, instead of letting them go and going with
them to the Palace Beautiful. I almost promised you, for you looked so
fierce, and your eyes were so bloodshot, and cruel, and terrible, and
I'd great work to keep remembering that you were really my friend; but
I'm so glad I did not give you that word too, for now I know that I'd
have done very wrong. A Prince has come to me, Mr. Dove, and told me I
am very selfish to try to keep my sisters out of the Palace Beautiful.
He says the walls are covered with Goodness and the furniture is put
there by Self-Denial, and the windows are shining because Love has
polished them up. He says there's no Love and no Goodness here, and he
calls your rooms dungeons. He's a very, very strong Prince, and he
kills ogres--he even kills ogres who are friends to little girls.
Please, Mr. Dove, this is to say that I'm going away to the Palace
Beautiful, and that I'll always keep my word about the sweeties.

"Your true little friend,
DAISY."

Then Daisy fastened her letter, and directed it to Mr. Dove, No. 10,
Eden Street, and she asked Primrose for a stamp, and then she and her
eldest sister went out, and Primrose turned her back while Daisy
dropped the letter into the nearest pillar-box.

The moment this was done the child gave a little skip, and caught
Primrose's hand, and squeezed it hard, and said, in an excited voice--

"Now I've done it! I'm not going to be the selfish little girl who
breaks people's hearts. Primrose, darling let us hurry back to the
dungeons, and put all our things together, so that we may reach the
Palace Beautiful to-night."

Poor Primrose, who was not in Daisy's secret, and knew nothing of
Arthur Noel's allegory, was conscious of a momentary wild fear that
her little sister had taken leave of her senses; but she soon began to
see meaning in Daisy's words, and was only too glad to yield to the
child's caprice at once.

That very night, theref