The Magicians Show Box and Other Stories | Page 8

keep silence. I see that you also wear
a crown, and you know how heavy it is."
"Yes, and it is of brass too, like yours. I am trying to free myself from
it," answered Rosamond. "But I do not care for your peacocks and
parrots, and will not tell them yours is not of gold; so do not be afraid;"
and off she went, leaving his majesty in a very uneasy state of mind.
But he had nothing to fear from her, for although she did not cry, "Vive
l'Empereur!" when he skated gorgeously by, she never revealed the fact
that he was only a long-clawed griffin.
Rosamond might have staid a long time in Paris, so amused was she by

all the gay plumage and dazzling confusion around her; but she soon
found that she was dying of starvation. She had always heard French
dishes and bon-bons most highly extolled, and now she found they
were nothing but dry leaves and husks, served up very prettily, to be
sure, but with no nourishment in them. So she looked on the map again,
and decided to go to the shore of the Baltic, and follow it along until
she came to the town in which the priest lived; for it certainly was
useless to look for one among the gayly-plumed skaters in Paris.
Hard walking she found it, among sands and stones, and poor living in
the fishermen's huts scattered along the coast. She was quite glad, one
day, to meet a little girl of her own age, picking berries. Rosamond
helped Greta fill her basket, and then accepted her invitation to go
home with her. After walking through a long green lane, among fields
of waving grain, they entered a town built of white marble; and
Rosamond knew this was the place she sought. They stopped at Greta's
house; but when Rosamond saw how many children there were in it,
she thought she should not be very comfortable there, and asked for a
hotel. Greta told her there was none in the town, but that she would find
herself welcome in any house.
So she walked about until she found a large one with handsome
columns before it, and there she passed the night. In the morning the
lady of the house said, "To-day I am bread maker, for you must know
we all work in this town, and all share our food together. If you stay
here, you must make bread with me."
Rosamond did not like this proposition at all, for her mother had never
taught her to work, and besides, she felt as if, with a crown upon her
head, she were a kind of queen. It seemed to her as if the villagers also
thought so when they looked at her as she walked through the streets,
and she bore herself very proudly for a while, but at length became so
tired and hungry, that she sank down on a doorstep, her head leaning on
her hand; and as she watched the passers-by through her drooping lids,
she noticed how very nice their shoes and stockings were. Then she
saw that her own were much torn and soiled, and looking down the
street, was mortified to trace her way along by the muddy footprints
she had left on the fair white marble. She went to Greta's mother, and
asked permission to wash her stockings and clean her shoes. But she
did not know how to do it nicely, and they still looked very badly.

"Clean bare feet would look better than such shoes and stockings," said
the mother.
"But I could not have bare feet and a crown," answered Rosamond.
"O, is it a crown? Excuse me, I thought it was a snake skin."
Rosamond half smiled, but said sadly, "It seems like a snake, it stings
me so sharply."
"You must go to Father Alter. A lady once came here with a jewelled
girdle which was clasping her to death. He sent her to a fountain high
among the mountains, and she returned in a white dress with a girdle of
wild flowers. She lived with me, and kept a school for children. She
was a lovely lady."
This reminded Rosamond of the priest, and she asked Greta to show
her where Father Alter lived.
She found him sitting in his garden of herbs among poor people who
were waiting for comfort and advice, and Rosamond also had to wait.
At length he turned to her, and laying his hand gently upon her golden
head, said, "I see what you want, my child. You must bathe your
forehead in the fountain, that the weight of this stone may be taken
from it."
"How shall I find the fountain, father?" she asked.
"Ah, my child," he