“And what did you do with the clothes you took off her? Sell them?”
“Put them in the fire, madam. They were not fit for the poorest child in the mountains. They were so ragged that you could see her skin through them in twenty different places.”
“You cruel woman, to torture a mother’s feelings so!” cried the queen, and in her turn burst into tears.
“And I’m sure,” sobbed the shepherdess, “I took every pains to teach her what it was right for her to know. I taught her to tidy the house and”—
“Tidy the house!” moaned the queen. “My poor wretched offspring!”
“And peel the potatoes, and”—
“Peel the potatoes!” cried the queen. “Oh, horror!”
“And black her master’s boots,” said the shepherdess.
“Black her master’s boots!” shrieked the queen. “Oh, my white-handed princess! Oh, my ruined baby!”
“What I want to know,” said the king, paying no heed to this maternal duel, but patting the top of his sceptre as if it had been the hilt of a sword which he was about to draw, “is, where the princess is now.”