"Children, be happy. Keep your happiness, keep it carefully."
While he spoke, Pic, Tad, Dic, Bob, Truc, and Paw, clinging to Bee's white mantle, covered with kisses the girl's naked arms and hands. And they begged her not to leave them. Then King Loc drew from his belt a ring, the stone of which flung showers of light. It was the magic ring with which he had opened the dungeon of the Sylphs. He slipped Bee's finger through it, and said:
"Bee, receive at my hands this ring, which will allow you to enter at all times, you and your husband, the kingdom of the dwarfs. You will be received with delight and helped in every way. On the other hand, teach the children you will have not to despise the innocent and industrious little men who live under the earth."
Dwarf
LOOKING BACKWARD
[Sidenote: Chapter I.]
Now that we know all about Princess Bee, we may find it pleasant to look backward and think a little about the story, chapter by chapter, to find out whether it has come to stay in our minds. Some stories do and others don't. We are glad to forget some stories, but I do not think that the story of Bee is one of that kind. Besides, it is told with such loving carefulness that, for the sake of the writer, who wrote that he might please and inspire us, we ought to read it again with a quiet mind, undisturbed by any thought of what is going to happen next; for now we know all about that.
It is a story of that wonder time so often spoken of as "long, long ago," and its date does not matter; but you will see from the first chapter that it belongs to the time of the knights, the best of whom tried to remedy things that were wrong and make the world a finer place in which to live.
Do you like the Countess of the White Moor? And why? How much older was George than Bee?