tar on his breast, and a sword by his side. They wrote with
diamond pencils on gold slates, and learnt their lessons so quickly
and read so easily that every one might know they were princes.
Their sister Eliza sat on a little stool of plate-glass, and had a
book full of pictures, which had cost as much as half a kingdom. Oh,
these children were indeed happy, but it was not to remain so
always. Their father, who was king of the country, married a very
wicked queen, who did not love the poor children at all. They knew
this from the very first day after the wedding. In the palace there
were great festivities, and the children played at receiving
company; but instead of having, as usual, all the cakes and apples
that were left, she gave them some sand in a tea-cup, and told them to
pretend it was cake. The week after, she sent little Eliza into the
country to a peasant and his wife, and then she told the king so
many untrue things about the young princes, that he gave himself no
more trouble respecting them.

"Go out into the world and get your own living," said the queen.
"Fly like great birds, who have no voice." But she could not make them
ugly as she wished, for they were turned into eleven beautiful wild
swans. Then, with a strange cry, they flew through the windows of
the palace, over the park, to the forest beyond. It was early
morning when they passed the peasant's cottage, where their sister
Eliza lay asleep in her room. They hovered over the roof, twisted
their long necks and flapped their wings, but no one heard them or saw
them, so they were at last obliged to fly away, high up in the clouds;
and over the wide world they flew till they came to a thick, dark
wood, which stretched far away to the seashore. Poor little Eliza
was alone in her room playing with a green leaf, for she had no
other playthings, and she pierced a hole through the leaf, and
looked through it at the sun, and it was as if she saw her brothers'
clear eyes, and when the warm sun shone on her cheeks, she thought
of all the kisses they had given her. One day passed just like
another; sometimes the winds rustled through the leaves of the
rose-bush, and would whisper to the roses, "Who can be more
beautiful than you!" But the roses would shake their heads, and say,
"Eliza is." And when the old woman sat at the cottage door on
Sunday, and read her hymn-book, the wind would flutter the leaves, and
say to the book, "Who can be more pious than you?"