ttle girl.

And other people lived there too; but that does not concern us. The old
woman, plain and brown and wrinkled though she was, was the wisest and
kindest old lady anywhere to be found, which is reason enough for her
being in the story; and as for the little girl, you have already guessed
that she is Lady Primrose; but how she came to be Lady Primrose is what
makes the story.

The village of Hollowbush was as pretty a place as you would care to
see--a quiet, quaint little town, where the grass ran up and down the
streets in a wild, free way it had, to which no one thought of
objecting; but as year after year went by, and the little girl who lived
there grew older without, unfortunately, growing wiser, she became so
tired of Hollowbush and its grass-grown streets that she was almost
ready to run away.

"If I were only rich," she was constantly saying to herself, "then I
might go where I chose."

Now it came to pass that one day in the merry spring-time, when the
world is so sweet and fragrant that you can hardly put your nose
out-of-doors without feeling as if you had tumbled head-foremost into a
huge bouquet, this little girl sat by the open window, wishing and
wishing with all her might that she were rich.

"For then," she said to herself, "I could have a diamond necklace; and
perhaps," she added, aloud, "I might have a jewelled coronet, like a
queen."

Just then the wise old woman of Hollowbush, who had the amiable
peculiarity of appearing just when people most needed her, stopped
before the window, and said, as she looked up at her young friend, "You
were wishing for a diamond necklace, my child. What would you do if I
should tell you of a country where diamonds are as plenty as flowers are
here?"

"What would I do?"--and the child laughed at the idea of there being but
one thing she could do.

"I would go to it at once, and fill my hands with the shining, beautiful
things. But you don't mean that there really is such a place," she
added, after a pause.

The old lady smiled, and said, "If you really love gems better than
anything else in the world, I can tell you where to find all and more
than all you want."

"That would be impossible," answered the child. "I could never have more
than enough. But what a beautiful country it must be! Do tell me where
to find it."

Still smiling, this wonderful old lady, who knew all manner of strange
secrets, called the child to her, and having whispered in h