leads you.'

'Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!'

'Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed,
and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that
while you hold it, I hold it too.'

'It is very wonderful!' said Irene thoughtfully. Then suddenly
becoming aware, she jumped up, crying:

'Oh, grandmother! here have I been sitting all this time in your chair,
and you standing! I beg your pardon.'

The lady laid her hand on her shoulder, and said:

'Sit down again, Irene. Nothing pleases me better than to see anyone
sit in my chair. I am only too glad to stand so long as anyone will
sit in it.'

'How kind of you!' said the princess, and sat down again.

'It makes me happy,' said the lady.

'But,' said Irene, still puzzled, 'won't the thread get in somebody's
way and be broken, if the one end is fast to my ring, and the other
laid in your cabinet?'

'You will find all that arrange itself. I am afraid it is time for you
to go.'

'Mightn't I stay and sleep with you tonight, grandmother?' 'No, not
tonight. If I had meant you to stay tonight, I should have given you a
bath; but you know everybody in the house is miserable about you, and
it would be cruel to keep them so all night. You must go downstairs.'

'I'm so glad, grandmother, you didn't say "Go home," for this is my
home. Mayn't I call this my home?'

'You may, my child. And I trust you will always think it your home.
Now come. I must take you back without anyone seeing you.'

'Please, I want to ask you one question more,' said Irene. 'Is it
because you have your crown on that you look so young?'

'No, child,' answered her grandmother; 'it is because I felt so young
this evening that I put my crown on. And I thought you would like to
see your old grandmother in her best.'

'Why do you call yourself old? You're not old, grandmother.'

'I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people--I don't mean you, for
you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better--but it is so silly of
people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and
feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness!
It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The
right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear
eyes and strong painless limbs. I am older than you are able to think,
and--'

'And look at you, grandmother!' cri