ere be such a city in the world?" she said to herself. "If I
only knew where it was, I should set out for it at once. THERE would be
the place for a clever girl like me!"

Her eyes fell on the picture which had so enticed Rosamond. It was the
very country where her father fed his flocks. Just round the shoulder
of the hill was the cottage where her parents lived, where she was born
and whence she had been carried by the beggar-woman.

"Ah!" she said, "they didn't know me there. They little thought what I
could be, if I had the chance. If I were but in this good, kind,
loving, generous king's palace, I should soon be such a great lady as
they never saw! Then they would understand what a good little girl I
had always been! And I shouldn't forget my poor parents like some I
have read of. _I_ would be generous. _I_ should never be selfish and
proud like girls in story-books!"

As she said this, she turned her back with disdain upon the picture of
her home, and setting herself before the picture of the palace, stared
at it with wide ambitious eyes, and a heart whose every beat was a
throb of arrogant self-esteem.

The shepherd-child was now worse than ever the poor princess had been.
For the wise woman had given her a terrible lesson one of which the
princess was not capable, and she had known what it meant; yet here she
was as bad as ever, therefore worse than before. The ugly creature
whose presence had made her so miserable had indeed crept out of sight
and mind too--but where was she? Nestling in her very heart, where most
of all she had her company, and least of all could see her. The wise
woman had called her out, that Agnes might see what sort of creature
she was herself; but now she was snug in her soul's bed again, and sue
did not even suspect she was there.

After gazing a while at the palace picture, during which her ambitious
pride rose and rose, she turned yet again in condescending mood, and
honored the home picture with one stare more.

"What a poor, miserable spot it is compared with this lordly palace!"
she said.

But presently she spied something in it she had not seen before, and
drew nearer. It was the form of a little girl, building a bridge of
stones over one of the hill-brooks.

"Ah, there I am myself!" she said. "That is just how I used to
do.--No," she resumed, "it is not me. That snub-nosed little fright
could never be meant for me! It was the frock that made me think so.
But it IS a pictu