“Ah! your Majesty, it wouldn’t be so bad if I could only get rid of my long tongue,” pleaded Lily. “Dear Queen, please can’t you rid me of my ugly tongue?”
“No, child, I cannot, but you can rid yourself of it.”
“How? Oh, please tell me.”
The Queen of the Moths sighed.
“There is only one way,” she answered. “Your tongue is disfigured, because it hath offended. If you wish to get rid of it, you must acknowledge your fault and confess the lie you told.”
Poor Lily! Like many other children of a larger growth, she was stubborn, and did not like this plan of getting rid of her trouble. Anything rather than saying: “I broke the clock.”
So the child went on among the Moths, suffering cold and hunger, midnight dancing, and the big tongue.
But little Lily loved her father and mother, and did not like to be away from them for ever. She [[193]]began to steal away from the valley, and go to her own home. Often she stood looking in at the window, and saw her father and mother and Teddy sitting with Scarlet Mantle; and the tears would start to her eyes, and run down her cheeks, and she would cry out in her grief, “Oh! I do so wish I was sitting on my own stool again.”
One night she was standing by the window particularly unhappy, and in a very penitent mood. Had she but the opportunity, she determined to confess her fault. There sat her father in the full flare of the lamp, thinking he had Lily by his side. There was Teddy with his toys, and while the little outcast was gazing, Jane, the nurse, entered with the tea-tray; cups and saucers began to rattle, and her brother and Scarlet Mantle gathered round the table. Oh, to be shut out from all this comfort, and the smiles and caresses of her parents! At length, something led her father to rise from his seat and look out into the darkness beyond. He opened the window and stepped out upon the verandah. In a moment a tiny hand was thrust into his own, and a timid, hesitating voice was heard to say,—
“I—I am—so—sorry. I—broke—the clock.”