And for once the queen was delighted, and could not help saying a nice ‘Thank you’ to the king for all the trouble he had taken to please her.  But it was not very long before she grew discontented again, and began once more to wish for all kinds of ridiculous things.  One day she was sitting at her window, and she saw some ragged little children playing by the river that ran round the palace.  They were dabbling in the mud at the side, sticking their little bare feet into it, or scooping up pieces which they rolled into balls and threw at one another.  The queen watched them for some time, and at last she began to weep bitterly.  One of her maidens ran and told the king that the queen was weeping, and he came in a great hurry to see what was the matter.

“‘Just look at those children down there!’ said the queen, sobbing and pointing to them.  ’Did you ever see anybody so happy?  Why can’t I have mud to dabble in too, and why can’t I take off my shoes and stockings, and amuse myself like the children do, instead of being so dull and stuck-up all day long?’

“‘Because it isn’t proper for queens to dabble in the mud,’ said the poor king in great perplexity, for he didn’t at all like the idea of his beautiful queen dabbling in the mud with the little ragged children.

“‘That’s just like you,’ said the queen, beginning to cry faster than ever,’ you never do anything to please me.  What’s the good of being proper?  What’s the good of being a queen at all?’

“This made the king very unhappy, and again he thought and thought, till at last he hit upon a plan.  He ordered a very large shallow bath of white marble to be made in the palace-garden.  Then he poured into it all kinds of precious stones, and chips of sweet-smelling wood, besides a thousand cartloads of rose-leaves and a thousand cartloads of orange flowers.  All these he ordered to be stirred up together with a great ivory spoon, till they made a kind of wonderful mud, and then he had the bath filled up with scented water.

“‘Now then,’ he said to the queen, when he had brought her down to look at it, ’you may take off your shoes and stockings and paddle about in this mud as much as you like.’  You may imagine that this was a very pleasant kind of mud to dabble in, and the queen and her ladies amused themselves with it immensely for some time.  But nothing could keep this tiresome queen amused for long together, and in about a fortnight she had grown quite tired of her wonderful bath.  It seemed as if the king’s pains had been all thrown away.  She grew cross and discontented again, and her ladies began to say to each other, ’What will she wish for next, I wonder?  The king might as well try to drink up the sea as try to get her all she wants.’  At last, one day, when she and her ladies were walking near the palace, they met a shepherdess driving a flock of sheep up into the hills.  The shepherdess looked so pretty and bright in her red petticoat and tall yellow cap, that the queen stopped to speak to her.