Bubble has told me about your stories, and I want very much to
hear one."
"Oh, Hilda, they are not worth telling twice!" protested Pink; "I just
make them for Bubble when he takes me out on Sunday. It's all I can do
for the dear lad."
"Don't you mind her, Miss Hildy," said Bubble; "they're fustrate
stories, an' she tells 'em jest like p--'rithmetic. Go ahead, Pink! Tell
the one about the princess what looked in the glass all the time."
So Pink, in her low, sweet voice, told the story of
THE VAIN PRINCESS.
Once upon a time there lived a princess who was so beautiful that it was
a wonder to look at her. But she was also very vain; and her beauty was
of no use or pleasure to anybody, for she sat and looked in her mirror
all day long, and never thought of doing anything else.
The mirror was framed in beaten gold, but the gold was not so bright as
her shining locks; and all about its rim great sapphires were set, but
they were dim and gray, compared with the blue of her lovely eyes. So
there she sat all day in a velvet chair, clad in a satin gown with
fringes of silver and pearl; and nobody in the world was one bit the
better for her or her beauty.
Now, one day the princess looked at herself so long and so earnestly
that she fell fast asleep in her velvet chair, with the golden mirror in
her lap. While she slept, a gust of wind blew the casement window open,
and a rose that was growing on the wall outside peeped in.
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