al she should ask them to let her in beneath
the warm folds of them. To her civil request some of them paid no
attention; others looked at her in wonder, and some were so rude as to
speak cruel words to her, and bid her not dare speak to them again.

So Maggie saw them walk on, wrapped in their warm cloaks, and complained
not. Indeed, she had lived too long in the little house without a door,
not to be able to bear the cold bravely--only she could not help wishing
sometimes that she had the bed with her, that she might jump in between
its clothes and warm herself a while; but she was patient, remembering
that she was journeying towards the Great King's palace, where her
mother lived. Suddenly it occurred to her that the road to the Great
King's palace lay through a remarkably cold country, and that the people
who were travelling thither seemed in no haste, for they often sat down
by the road-side and played; and some even went back, instead of
forward, while all those little side-roads, which she thought she had
seen before, had vanished. So, one day, she said to one of the people
who sat down:

"Why do you not hasten that you may see the Great King?"

"The Great King, indeed!" he said whom she had addressed. "I am in no
hurry to see him."

And others intimated as much as the lady long ago had said, that they
themselves doubted very much if there were any Great King at all.

"What shall I do?" cried Maggie. "I cannot be in the right way. O, how
shall I get to the Great King's palace!" And, upon this, the Dove rose
up from Maggie's bosom, and turned backwards whither they had come.
Though long and dreary seemed the cold road she must retrace, yet, such
was her confidence in the Dove, she turned very gladly; and though not
one of those people had cared for Maggie before, now they clustered
around her, begging her not to leave them, and seeking to draw her away
from her purpose. And when she saw how they seemed to love her, and feel
sorrow at her going, she said to them:

"I am grieved to leave you, since you have just begun to love me; but I
promised my mother I would go to the Great King's palace, and I must go
where Dovey leads me."

"How silly to mind a bird!" cried one; and, picking up a stone, he
hurled it at the Dove, who was hovering in the air, and broke its wing,
so it could not fly.

Then, indeed, it seemed as though her grief was very great, and she
could not help wishing she were already in the Great