Rosamond saw them give a great start, shudder, waver to and fro, then
sit down on the steps of the dais; and she knew they were punished, but
knew not how. She rushed up to them, and catching a hand of each said--

"Father, dear father! mother dear! I will ask the wise woman to forgive
you."

"Oh, I am blind! I am blind!" they cried together. "Dark as night!
Stone blind!"

Rosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and kneeling at her feet,
cried, "Oh, my lovely wise woman! do let them see. Do open their eyes,
dear, good, wise woman."

The wise woman bent down to her, and said, so that none else could
hear, "I will one day. Meanwhile you must be their servant, as I have
been yours. Bring them to me, and I will make them welcome."

Rosamond rose, went up the steps again to her father and mother, where
they sat like statues with closed eyes, half-way from the top of the
dais where stood their empty thrones, seated herself between them, took
a hand of each, and was still.

All this time very few in the room saw the wise woman. The moment she
threw off her cloak she vanished from the sight of almost all who were
present. The woman who swept and dusted the hall and brushed the
thrones, saw her, and the shepherd had a glimmering vision of her; but
no one else that I know of caught a glimpse of her. The shepherdess did
not see her. Nor did Agnes, but she felt her presence upon her like the
beat of a furnace seven times heated.

As soon as Rosamond had taken her place between her father and mother,
the wise woman lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again
around her. Then everybody saw her, and Agnes felt as if a soft dewy
cloud had come between her and the torrid rays of a vertical sun. The
wise woman turned to the shepherd and shepherdess.

"For you," she said, "you are sufficiently punished by the work of your
own hands. Instead of making your daughter obey you, you left her to be
a slave to herself; you coaxed when you ought to have compelled; you
praised when you ought to have been silent; you fondled when you ought
to have punished; you threatened when you ought to have inflicted--and
there she stands, the full-grown result of your foolishness! She is
your crime and your punishment. Take her home with you, and live hour
after hour with the pale-hearted disgrace you call your daughter. What
she is, the worm at her heart has begun to teach her. When life is no
longer endurable, come to me.

"Madam," said