She began to speak.

“I very seldom make a speech,” she said.  “Scarcely once in a hundred years do I make a speech in public.  But if you will bear with words for once, instead of deeds—­upon my assurance that deeds shall immediately follow—­I have this to say to you: 

“It is a very great thing when children find their parents again after losing them; but the last good of all, and perhaps the greatest, is when parents find their children whom they have lost.

“You who have assembled here have found your parents at last.  This I know, not because you have come here into their presence—­for you must know they are behind yonder painted curtains, which we shall presently lift—­but because you have learned to know the need of them, and because you have come in very truth to love them.

“We shall see now if your parents have found you.”

The children caught at that saying, which seemed wholly obscure to them, and wondered what meaning could lie behind it.  But in the meantime Truth had turned toward the curtains.  She gazed at them one after another in an intense manner, and finally she stepped close to the one whereon the likeness of the Old Woman who lived in a shoe was painted.

In a commanding voice she cried out, “Old Woman who lived in a shoe, appear!”

The curtain moved; it was thrust forward a little at one side, and the Old Woman who lived in a shoe stepped out!

To her Truth spoke calmly yet with a certain majesty.  “I have come,” said she, “to restore your children to you, to be yours forever—­but on one condition.”

The Old Woman lifted her sad eyes and gazed in amazement at Truth.  “To think,” she blurted out, “that they should have run up against the like of you!  How may I have them again to keep?  Speak—­there’s a good soul!”

The reply came in a ringing tone:  “You must promise to love your children better than you love yourself.”

“I do—­oh, I do!” cried the Old Woman, the tears starting to her eyes.

What happened then?  At a sign from Truth the children went spinning toward the Old Woman.  She drew the curtain out a little so that they could slip into the hidden space behind it.  One after another they eagerly disappeared, and then she followed them.

When they had all disappeared, Truth moved along to the next curtain, on which a portrait of Old Mother Hubbard was painted.  She called out commandingly, “Old Mother Hubbard, appear!”

As in the former case, the curtain was pushed out at one side, and you could tell that some one was coming.  Old Mother Hubbard appeared!

To her Truth said:  “Your greatest unkindness to your son was your unkindness to his dog.  If you would have your son again, you must promise to love him better than you love yourself—­and I advise you first of all to think kindly of the dog that was his friend.”

She had scarcely finished speaking when Old Mother Hubbard cried out in broken tones: