more for her
own fancies and desires than for any thing else in the world. But I
will tell you another difference: the princess was like several
children in one--such was the variety of her moods; and in one mood she
had no recollection or care about any thing whatever belonging to a
previous mood--not even if it had left her but a moment before, and had
been so violent as to make her ready to put her hand in the fire to get
what she wanted. Plainly she was the mere puppet of her moods, and more
than that, any cunning nurse who knew her well enough could call or
send away those moods almost as she pleased, like a showman pulling
strings behind a show. Agnes, on the contrary, seldom changed her mood,
but kept that of calm assured self-satisfaction. Father nor mother had
ever by wise punishment helped her to gain a victory over herself, and
do what she did not like or choose; and their folly in reasoning with
one unreasonable had fixed her in her conceit. She would actually nod
her head to herself in complacent pride that she had stood out against
them. This, however, was not so difficult as to justify even the pride
of having conquered, seeing she loved them so little, and paid so
little attention to the arguments and persuasions they used. Neither,
when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman's
cloak, did she behave in the least like the princess, for she was not
afraid. "She'll soon set me down," she said, too self-important to
suppose that any one would dare do her an injury.

Whether it be a good thing or a bad not to be afraid depends on what
the fearlessness is founded upon. Some have no fear, because they have
no knowledge of the danger: there is nothing fine in that. Some are too
stupid to be afraid: there is nothing fine in that. Some who are not
easily frightened would yet turn their backs and run, the moment they
were frightened: such never had more courage than fear. But the man who
will do his work in spite of his fear is a man of true courage. The
fearlessness of Agnes was only ignorance: she did not know what it was
to be hurt; she had never read a single story of giant, or ogress or
wolf; and her mother had never carried out one of her threats of
punishment. If the wise woman had but pinched her, she would have shown
herself an abject little coward, trembling with fear at every change of
motion so long as she carried her.

Nothing such, however, was in the wise woman's plan for the