Was she weary of being a Queen?
And so the days went by.
One day as the Queen passed down the palace steps she came upon a beautiful girl, clothed in tatters as she had once been, seated on the lowest step, selling flowers—water-lilies.
The Queen stopped.
"Where did you gather your water-lilies, child?" she asked.
"I gathered them from a pool in the great forest yonder," answered the girl, with a curtsey.
"Give me one of them," said the Queen, with a sob in her voice, and she slipped a piece of gold into the girl's hand, and fled back into the palace.
That night, as she lay awake by her sleeping King, she rose silently and stole into the secret gallery. There, with tears running down her cheeks, she dressed herself in the little tattered gown and took the lute in her hand, and then stole back and pressed a last kiss on the brow of her sleeping King, who still slept on.