Grandmother called to them, “Come children, come! here is the Queen of the May. Her name is Nelly, and she has come to stay to tea, and you shall all stay too.”
The children came up half shy, half bold.
“What makes her sit so funny?” asked a very little boy.
“You be still or I’ll bat your head off!” muttered his elder brother savagely. No one else made any mistake, and most of them were careful not to look too much at Nelly; children are gentlefolk, if you take them the right way.
Then they listened to the story of the princess in the brown dress; how she came into the town, and no one knew she was a princess at all, but every one said, “See the poor woman in the tattered brown gown!” But the princess did not mind. She went hither and thither, up and down, and whenever she met any one who was in need, she put her hand inside the folds of her gown, and brought out a piece of gold or a shining jewel, and gave it to the poor person. So when this had gone on for some time, people began to talk one to another. One said, “Where does this beggar woman get the gold and the gems that she gives?”
“She must have begged them!” said another.
“Or stolen them!” said a third.
Then all the people cried out, “She is a thief! let her be stripped and beaten!”
So they brought the princess to the market-place; and cruel men seized her and pulled off her tattered brown gown; and oh! and oh! children, what do you think? there stood the most radiant princess that ever was seen upon earth; her dress was of pure woven gold, and set from top to hem with precious stones so bright that the sun laughed in every one of them, and her hair (for they had pulled off her cap too) was as fair gold as the dress, and fell around her like a golden cloak. So she stood for a minute like heaven come to earth; and then all in a moment she vanished away, and only the tattered brown dress was left for them to do what they would with.
“So, darlings, be very careful to be nice to everybody, especially to anyone in a shabby brown dress, for there may always be a princess inside it.”