hat she did not dare even lift her eyes to meet her
mother's, and the shepherd kept gazing on her in silence. As for the
king, he was so breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he was
too feeble to fling the ragged child from him, as he tried to do. But
she left him, and running down the steps of the one throne and up those
of the other, began kissing the queen next. But the queen cried out,--

"Get away, you great rude child!--Will nobody take her to the rack?"

Then the princess, hardly knowing what she did for joy that she had
come in time, ran down the steps of the throne and the dais, and
placing herself between the shepherd and shepherdess, took a hand of
each, and stood looking at the king and queen.

Their faces began to change. At last they began to know her. But she
was so altered--so lovelily altered, that it was no wonder they should
not have known her at the first glance; but it was the fault of the
pride and anger and injustice with which their hearts were filled, that
they did not know her at the second.

The king gazed and the queen gazed, both half risen from their thrones,
and looking as if about to tumble down upon her, if only they could be
right sure that the ragged girl was their own child. A mistake would be
such a dreadful thing!

"My darling!" at last shrieked the mother, a little doubtfully.

"My pet of pets?" cried the father, with an interrogative twist of tone.

Another moment, and they were half way down the steps of the dais.

"Stop!" said a voice of command from somewhere in the hall, and, king
and queen as they were, they stopped at once half way, then drew
themselves up, stared, and began to grow angry again, but durst not go
farther.

The wise woman was coming slowly up through the crowd that filled the
hall. Every one made way for her. She came straight on until she stood
in front of the king and queen.

"Miserable man and woman!" she said, in words they alone could hear, "I
took your daughter away when she was worthy of such parents; I bring
her back, and they are unworthy of her. That you did not know her when
she came to you is a small wonder, for you have been blind in soul all
your lives: now be blind in body until your better eyes are unsealed."

She threw her cloak open. It fell to the ground, and the radiance that
flashed from her robe of snowy whiteness, from her face of awful
beauty, and from her eyes that shone like pools of sunlight, smote them
blind.