“How is it that you make them grow?”
“I say, ‘You darling!’ and throw it away and there it is.”
“Where do you get them?”
“In my lap.”
“I wish you would let me throw one away.”
“Have you got any in your lap? Let me see.”
“No; I have none.”
“Then you can’t throw one away, if you haven’t got one.”
“You are mocking me!” cried the princess.
“I am not mocking you,” said the child, looking her full in the face, with reproach in her large blue eyes.
“Oh, that’s where the flowers come from!” said the princess to herself, the moment she saw them, hardly knowing what she meant.
Then the child rose as if hurt, and quickly threw away all the flowers she had in her lap, but one by one, and without any sign of anger. When they were all gone, she stood a moment, and then, in a kind of chanting cry, called, two or three times, “Peggy! Peggy! Peggy!”
A low, glad cry, like the whinny of a horse, answered, and, presently, out of the wood on the opposite side of the glade, came gently trotting the loveliest little snow-white pony, with great shining blue wings, half-lifted from his shoulders. Straight towards the little girl, neither hurrying nor lingering, he trotted with light elastic tread.
Rosamond’s love for animals broke into a perfect passion of delight at the vision. She rushed to meet the pony with such haste, that, although clearly the best trained animal under the sun, he started back, plunged, reared, and struck out with his forefeet ere he had time to observe what sort of a creature it was that had so startled him. When he perceived it was a little girl, he dropped instantly upon all fours, and content with avoiding her, resumed his quiet trot in the direction of his mistress. Rosamond stood gazing after him in miserable disappointment.
When he reached the child, he laid his head on her shoulder, and she put her arm up round his neck; and after she had talked to him a little, he turned and came trotting back to the princess.
Almost beside herself with joy, she began caressing him in the rough way which, notwithstanding her love for them, she was in the habit of using with animals; and she was not gentle enough, in herself even, to see that he did not like it, and was only putting up with it for the sake of his mistress. But when, that she might jump upon his back, she laid hold of one of his wings, and ruffled some of the blue feathers, he wheeled suddenly about, gave his long tail a sharp whisk which threw her flat on the grass, and, trotting back to his mistress, bent down his head before her as if asking excuse for ridding himself of the unbearable.
The princess was furious. She had forgotten all her past life up to the time when she first saw the child: her beauty had made her forget, and yet she was now on the very borders of hating her. What she might have done, or rather tried to do, had not Peggy’s tail struck her down with such force that for a moment she could not rise, I cannot tell.
But while she lay half-stunned, her eyes fell on a little flower just under them. It stared up in her face like the living thing it was, and she could not take her eyes off its face. It was like a primrose trying to express doubt instead of confidence. It seemed to put her half in mind of something, and she felt as if shame were coming. She put out her hand to pluck it; but the moment her fingers touched it, the flower withered up, and hung as dead on its stalks as if a flame of fire had passed over it.
Then a shudder thrilled through the heart of the princess, and she thought with herself, saying—“What sort of a creature am I that the flowers wither when I touch them, and the ponies despise me with their tails? What a wretched, coarse, ill-bred creature I must be! There is that lovely child giving life instead of death to the flowers, and a moment ago I was hating her! I am made horrid, and I shall be horrid, and I hate myself, and yet I can’t help being myself!”
She heard the sound of galloping feet, and there was the pony, with the child seated betwixt his wings, coming straight on at full speed for where she lay.
“I don’t care,” she said. “They may trample me under their feet if they like. I am tired and sick of myself—a creature at whose touch the flowers wither!”
On came the winged pony. But while yet some distance off, he gave a great bound, spread out his living sails of blue, rose yards and yards above her in the air, and alighted as gently as a bird, just a few feet on the other side of her. The child slipped down and came and kneeled over her.
“Did my pony hurt you?” she said. “I am so sorry!”
“Yes, he hurt me,” answered the princess, “but not more than I deserved, for I took liberties with him, and he did not like it.”
“Oh, you dear!” said the little girl. “I love you for talking so of my Peggy. He is a good pony, though a little playful sometimes. Would you like a ride upon him?”
“You darling beauty!” cried Rosamond, sobbing. “I do love you so, you are so good. How did you become so sweet?”
“Would you like to ride my pony?” repeated the child, with a heavenly smile in her eyes.
“No, no; he is fit only for you. My clumsy body would hurt him,” said Rosamond.
“You don’t mind me having such a pony?” said the child.
“What! mind it?” cried Rosamond, almost indignantly. Then remembering certain thoughts that had but a few moments before passed through her mind, she looked on the ground and was silent.
“You don’t mind it, then?” repeated
