“Ah!” she said, “they didn’t know me there.  They little thought what I could be, if I had the chance.  If I were but in this good, kind, loving, generous king’s palace, I should soon be such a great lady as they never saw!  Then they would understand what a good little girl I had always been!  And I shouldn’t forget my poor parents like some I have read of. I would be generous. I should never be selfish and proud like girls in story-books!”

As she said this, she turned her back with disdain upon the picture of her home, and setting herself before the picture of the palace, stared at it with wide ambitious eyes, and a heart whose every beat was a throb of arrogant self-esteem.

The shepherd-child was now worse than ever the poor princess had been.  For the wise woman had given her a terrible lesson one of which the princess was not capable, and she had known what it meant; yet here she was as bad as ever, therefore worse than before.  The ugly creature whose presence had made her so miserable had indeed crept out of sight and mind too—­but where was she?  Nestling in her very heart, where most of all she had her company, and least of all could see her.  The wise woman had called her out, that Agnes might see what sort of creature she was herself; but now she was snug in her soul’s bed again, and sue did not even suspect she was there.

After gazing a while at the palace picture, during which her ambitious pride rose and rose, she turned yet again in condescending mood, and honored the home picture with one stare more.

“What a poor, miserable spot it is compared with this lordly palace!” she said.

But presently she spied something in it she had not seen before, and drew nearer.  It was the form of a little girl, building a bridge of stones over one of the hill-brooks.

“Ah, there I am myself!” she said.  “That is just how I used to do.—­No,” she resumed, “it is not me.  That snub-nosed little fright could never be meant for me!  It was the frock that made me think so.  But it is a picture of the place.  I declare, I can see the smoke of the cottage rising from behind the hill!  What a dull, dirty, insignificant spot it is!  And what a life to lead there!”

She turned once more to the city picture.  And now a strange thing took place.  In proportion as the other, to the eyes of her mind, receded into the background, this, to her present bodily eyes, appeared to come forward and assume reality.  At last, after it had been in this way growing upon her for some time, she gave a cry of conviction, and said aloud,—­

“I do believe it is real!  That frame is only a trick of the woman to make me fancy it a picture lest I should go and make my fortune.  She is a witch, the ugly old creature!  It would serve her right to tell the king and have her punished for not taking me to the palace—­one of his poor lost children he is so fond of!  I should like to see her ugly old head cut off.  Anyhow I will try my luck without asking her leave.  How she has ill used me!”