A Double Story | Page 4

the wise woman unfolded her arms; and her cloak
dropping open in front, disclosed a garment made of a strange stuff,
which an old poet who knew her well has thus described:--
"All lilly white, withoutten spot or pride, That seemd like silke and
silver woven neare; But neither silke nor silver therein did appeare."
"How very badly you have treated her!" said the wise woman. "Poor
child!"
"Treated her badly?" gasped the king.
"She is a very wicked child," said the queen; and both glared with

indignation.
"Yes, indeed!" returned the wise woman. "She is very naughty indeed,
and that she must be made to feel; but it is half your fault too."
"What!" stammered the king. "Haven't we given her every mortal thing
she wanted?"
"Surely," said the wise woman: "what else could have all but killed her?
You should have given her a few things of the other sort. But you are
far too dull to understand me."
"You are very polite," remarked the king, with royal sarcasm on his
thin, straight lips.
The wise woman made no answer beyond a deep sigh; and the king and
queen sat silent also in their anger, glaring at the wise woman. The
silence lasted again for a minute, and then the wise woman folded her
cloak around her, and her shining garment vanished like the moon
when a great cloud comes over her. Yet another minute passed and the
silence endured, for the smouldering wrath of the king and queen
choked the channels of their speech. Then the wise woman turned her
back on them, and so stood. At this, the rage of the king broke forth;
and he cried to the queen, stammering in his fierceness,--
"How should such an old hag as that teach Rosamond good manners?
She knows nothing of them herself! Look how she stands!--actually
with her back to us."
At the word the wise woman walked from the room. The great folding
doors fell to behind her; and the same moment the king and queen were
quarrelling like apes as to which of them was to blame for her departure.
Before their altercation was over, for it lasted till the early morning, in
rushed Rosamond, clutching in her hand a poor little white rabbit, of
which she was very fond, and from which, only because it would not
come to her when she called it, she was pulling handfuls of fur in the
attempt to tear the squealing, pink-eared, red-eyed thing to pieces.

"Rosa, RosaMOND!" cried the queen; whereupon Rosamond threw the
rabbit in her mother's face. The king started up in a fury, and ran to
seize her. She darted shrieking from the room. The king rushed after
her; but, to his amazement, she was nowhere to be seen: the huge hall
was empty.--No: just outside the door, close to the threshold, with her
back to it, sat the figure of the wise woman, muffled in her dark cloak,
with her head bowed over her knees. As the king stood looking at her,
she rose slowly, crossed the hall, and walked away down the marble
staircase. The king called to her; but she never turned her head, or gave
the least sign that she heard him. So quietly did she pass down the wide
marble stair, that the king was all but persuaded he had seen only a
shadow gliding across the white steps.
For the princess, she was nowhere to be found. The queen went into
hysterics; and the rabbit ran away. The king sent out messengers in
every direction, but in vain.
In a short time the palace was quiet--as quiet as it used to be before the
princess was born. The king and queen cried a little now and then, for
the hearts of parents were in that country strangely fashioned; and yet I
am afraid the first movement of those very hearts would have been a
jump of terror if the ears above them had heard the voice of Rosamond
in one of the corridors. As for the rest of the household, they could not
have made up a single tear amongst them. They thought, whatever it
might be for the princess, it was, for every one else, the best thing that
could have happened; and as to what had become of her, if their heads
were puzzled, their hearts took no interest in the question. The
lord-chancellor alone had an idea about it, but he was far too wise to
utter it.

II.

The fact, as is plain, was, that the princess had disappeared in the folds
of the wise woman's cloak. When she rushed from the room, the wise
woman caught her to her bosom and flung the black garment around

her. The princess struggled wildly, for she