begged. "Tell me how you gain the love of your people and
keep it through all the years. Tell me so that I may teach my young son
how to hold his throne?"

"Is that all?" exclaimed the Queen. "Come, I will show you."

[Illustration: "She led the way to her own lovely sleeping-chamber."]

She led the way to her own lovely sleeping-chamber, hung with rose silk
and panelled with polished silver and amethyst, and she pointed to a
great mirror set strongly into the wall. "Look within!" she said.

Wonderingly, the Queen-mother obeyed. On the surface of the mirror the
faces and forms of herself and the young queen were reflected; but
after a few moments, as she gazed, these faded away, and in their places
came a picture of a mine, with blackened toilers filling tracks with
coal. That, too, faded, and a golden cornfield showed upon the polished
glass; under the hot summer sun the busy reapers moved, wiping the sweat
from their brows when they stopped a moment to rest. A third picture was
of weavers making cloth. A cottage home came next, and a lordly mansion
of the rich, and a homeless child seeking shelter under a city bridge.
So scene followed scene, beautiful, or sad, or sordid, sometimes wild
and violent, and sometimes gay and peaceful, showing in the main a
people happy and content.

"What is it?" asked the amazed Queen-mother at last. "How come these
pictures here?"

"They are the life of my state reflected on this magic mirror for my
help," replied the Queen. "Long ago, when the first queen came to rule
the new kingdom of Westroyal, the fairies brought this mirror and set it
in the wall as here you see it. Faithfully ever since it has reflected
the daily happenings through-out the land, the people's toil and
pleasures, their dangers and their comforts and rewards. So each queen
has known her country. Your son, looking in his mirror, sees but
himself; I see the sufferings of my people and know what things they
need, and so plainly are these pictures set before me that I cannot rest
till I have used my power to give relief."

"Oh!" cried the Queen-mother, "now I see why you are loved. How can I
get such a mirror for my son?"

"That I know not," replied the Queen.

Then the Queen-mother returned sad at heart to the kingdom of her son,
pondering on what she had seen.

Once again she walked in her garden alone. "How shall I get such a
mirror?" she wondered. "What should I do?"

As once before, a voice replied "I