As she spoke, suddenly she held up before the princess a tiny mirror, so clear that nobody looking into it could tell what it was made of, or even see it at all—­only the thing reflected in it.  Rosamond saw a child with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly eyes—­which, not daring to look forward, seemed trying to hide behind an impertinent nose—­stooping shoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes, and smears and stains everywhere.  That was what she had made herself.  And to tell the truth, she was shocked at the sight, and immediately began, in her dirty heart, to lay the blame on the wise woman, because she had taken her away from her nurses and her fine clothes; while all the time she knew well enough that, close by the heather-bed, was the loveliest little well, just big enough to wash in, the water of which was always springing fresh from the ground, and running away through the wall.  Beside it lay the whitest of linen towels, with a comb made of mother-of-pearl, and a brush of fir-needles, any one of which she had been far too lazy to use.  She dashed the glass out of the wise woman’s hand, and there it lay, broken into a thousand pieces!

Without a word, the wise woman stooped, and gathered the fragments—­did not leave searching until she had gathered the last atom, and she laid them all carefully, one by one, in the fire, now blazing high on the hearth.  Then she stood up and looked at the princess, who had been watching her sulkily.

“Rosamond,” she said, with a countenance awful in its sternness, “until you have cleansed this room—­”

“She calls it a room!” sneered the princess to herself.

“You shall have no morsel to eat.  You may drink of the well, but nothing else you shall have.  When the work I set you is done, you will find food in the same place as before.  I am going from home again; and again I warn you not to leave the house.”

“She calls it a house!—­It’s a good thing she’s going out of it anyhow!” said the princess, turning her back for mere rudeness, for she was one who, even if she liked a thing before, would dislike it the moment any person in authority over her desired her to do it.

When she looked again, the wise woman had vanished.

Thereupon the princess ran at once to the door, and tried to open it; but open it would not.  She searched on all sides, but could discover no way of getting out.  The windows would not open—­at least she could not open them; and the only outlet seemed the chimney, which she was afraid to try because of the fire, which looked angry, she thought, and shot out green flames when she went near it.  So she sat down to consider.  One may well wonder what room for consideration there was—­with all her work lying undone behind her.  She sat thus, however, considering, as she called it, until hunger began to sting her, when she jumped up and put her hand as usual in the hole of the wall:  there was nothing there.  She fell straight into