s, and be
nobody knew where, sometimes from morning to night; nor did her parents
venture to find fault with her.

She never went into rages like the princess, and would have thought
Rosamond--oh, so ugly and vile! if she had seen her in one of her
passions. But she was no better, for all that, and was quite as ugly in
the eyes of the wise woman, who could not only see but read her face.
What is there to choose between a face distorted to hideousness by
anger, and one distorted to silliness by self-complacency? True, there
is more hope of helping the angry child out of her form of selfishness
than the conceited child out of hers; but on the other hand, the
conceited child was not so terrible or dangerous as the wrathful one.
The conceited one, however, was sometimes very angry, and then her
anger was more spiteful than the other's; and, again, the wrathful one
was often very conceited too. So that, on the whole, of two very
unpleasant creatures, I would say that the king's daughter would have
been the worse, had not the shepherd's been quite as bad. But, as I
have said, the wise woman had her eye upon her: she saw that something
special must be done, else she would be one of those who kneel to their
own shadows till feet grow on their knees; then go down on their hands
till their hands grow into feet; then lay their faces on the ground
till they grow into snouts; when at last they are a hideous sort of
lizards, each of which believes himself the best, wisest, and loveliest
being in the world, yea, the very centre of the universe. And so they
run about forever looking for their own shadows, that they may worship
them, and miserable because they cannot find them, being themselves too
near the ground to have any shadows; and what becomes of them at last
there is but one who knows.

The wise woman, therefore, one day walked up to the door of the
shepherd's cottage, dressed like a poor woman, and asked for a drink of
water. The shepherd's wife looked at her, liked her, and brought her a
cup of milk. The wise woman took it, for she made it a rule to accept
every kindness that was offered her.

Agnes was not by nature a greedy girl, as I have said; but self-conceit
will go far to generate every other vice under the sun. Vanity, which
is a form of self-conceit, has repeatedly shown itself as the deepest
feeling in the heart of a horrible murderess.

That morning, at breakfast, her mother had stinted her in milk--just a
lit