When the soldiers reached the palace, they were ordered to carry their prisoners at once into the presence of the king and queen, in the throne room.  Their two thrones stood upon a high dais at one end, and on the floor at the foot of the dais, the soldiers laid their helpless prisoners.  The queen commanded that they should be unbound, and ordered them to stand up.  They obeyed with the dignity of insulted innocence, and their bearing offended their foolish majesties.

Meantime the princess, after a long day’s journey, arrived at the palace, and walked up to the sentry at the gate.

“Stand back,” said the sentry.

“I wish to go in, if you please,” said the princess gently.

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the sentry, for he was one of those dull people who form their judgment from a person’s clothes, without even looking in his eyes; and as the princess happened to be in rags, her request was amusing, and the booby thought himself quite clever for laughing at her so thoroughly.

“I am the princess,” Rosamond said quietly.

“What princess?” bellowed the man.

“The princess Rosamond.  Is there another?” she answered and asked.

But the man was so tickled at the wondrous idea of a princess in rags, that he scarcely heard what she said for laughing.  As soon as he recovered a little, he proceeded to chuck the princess under the chin, saying—­

“You’re a pretty girl, my dear, though you ain’t no princess.”

Rosamond drew back with dignity.

“You have spoken three untruths at once,” she said.  “I am not pretty, and I am a princess, and if I were dear to you, as I ought to be, you would not laugh at me because I am badly dressed, but stand aside, and let me go to my father and mother.”

The tone of her speech, and the rebuke she gave him, made the man look at her; and looking at her, he began to tremble inside his foolish body, and wonder whether he might not have made a mistake.  He raised his hand in salute, and said—­

“I beg your pardon, miss, but I have express orders to admit no child whatever within the palace gates.  They tell me his majesty the king says he is sick of children.”

“He may well be sick of me!” thought the princess; “but it can’t mean that he does not want me home again.—­I don’t think you can very well call me a child,” she said, looking the sentry full in the face.

“You ain’t very big, miss,” answered the soldier, “but so be you say you ain’t a child, I’ll take the risk.  The king can only kill me, and a man must die once.”

He opened the gate, stepped aside, and allowed her to pass.  Had she lost her temper, as every one but the wise woman would have expected of her, he certainly would not have done so.

She ran into the palace, the door of which had been left open by the porter when he followed the soldiers and prisoners to the throne-room, and bounded up the stairs to look for her father and mother.  As she passed the door of the throne-room she heard an unusual noise in it, and running to the king’s private entrance, over which hung a heavy curtain, she peeped past the edge of it, and saw, to her amazement, the shepherd and shepherdess standing like culprits before the king and queen, and the same moment heard the king say—­