As they went up the hill, the children passed a poor fagot gatherer, bending under her great bundle.
"Off a pleasuring, with little thought for others," the old woman mumbled to herself, but Primrose stole up to her side and slipped one soft little hand in the woman's hard, care-worn one.
"I will carry half your fagots for you to the turn of the road," she said. And she did, with the old woman's blessing on her sunny head at the turn.
Farther on, the children passed a young thrush that had fallen out of its nest and was crying beside the road. The mother bird cried, too. It was as if she said,
"You have no thought of my trouble."
But Primrose lifted the bird in her two hands and scrambled through the bushes until she had found its nest and put it safely in. The branches tore her dress that had been ragged before, but the mother thrush sang like a flute to have her little one back.
Just outside the castle gates, there was a blind boy seated, asking alms. When the other children passed him, laughing and chattering of all that they saw, tears fell down the cheeks of the little blind boy, for he had not been able to see for a long, long time. The others did not notice him, but Primrose stopped beside him and put her hands softly on his eyes. Then she picked a wild rose that grew beside the road and put it close to his face. He could feel its soft petals, and smell its perfume, and it made him smile.
Then Primrose hurried through the castle gates and up to the doors. They were about to be closed. The children had crowded in.
"There is no one else to come," the children shouted.
Then they added, "There is no other child except Primrose and she has no dress for a party and no gift for you, great Prince."