“Nobody can be a real princess—­do not imagine you have yet been any thing more than a mock one—­until she is a princess over herself, that is, until, when she finds herself unwilling to do the thing that is right, she makes herself do it.  So long as any mood she is in makes her do the thing she will be sorry for when that mood is over, she is a slave, and no princess.  A princess is able to do what is right even should she unhappily be in a mood that would make another unable to do it.  For instance, if you should be cross and angry, you are not a whit the less bound to be just, yes, kind even—­a thing most difficult in such a mood—­though ease itself in a good mood, loving and sweet.  Whoever does what she is bound to do, be she the dirtiest little girl in the street, is a princess, worshipful, honorable.  Nay, more; her might goes farther than she could send it, for if she act so, the evil mood will wither and die, and leave her loving and clean.—­Do you understand me, dear Rosamond?”

As she spoke, the wise woman laid her hand on her head and looked—­oh, so lovingly!—­into her eyes.

“I am not sure,” said the princess, humbly.

“Perhaps you will understand me better if I say it just comes to this, that you must not do what is wrong, however much you are inclined to do it, and you must do what is right, however much you are disinclined to do it.”

“I understand that,” said the princess.

“I am going, then, to put you in one of the mood-chambers of which I have many in the house.  Its mood will come upon you, and you will have to deal with it.”

She rose and took her by the hand.  The princess trembled a little, but never thought of resisting.

The wise woman led her into the great hall with the pictures, and through a door at the farther end, opening upon another large hall, which was circular, and had doors close to each other all round it.  Of these she opened one, pushed the princess gently in, and closed it behind her.

The princess found herself in her old nursery.  Her little white rabbit came to meet her in a lumping canter as if his back were going to tumble over his head.  Her nurse, in her rocking-chair by the chimney corner, sat just as she had used.  The fire burned brightly, and on the table were many of her wonderful toys, on which, however, she now looked with some contempt.  Her nurse did not seem at all surprised to see her, any more than if the princess had but just gone from the room and returned again.

“Oh! how different I am from what I used to be!” thought the princess to herself, looking from her toys to her nurse.  “The wise woman has done me so much good already!  I will go and see mamma at once, and tell her I am very glad to be at home again, and very sorry I was so naughty.”

She went towards the door.

“Your queen-mamma, princess, cannot see you now,” said her nurse.