Now it chanced one day that while the handmaidens were picking the flowers for their queen, one of them looked over the garden wall to the blue hills that lay beyond. To her great surprise, she discovered that a field alight with wonderful colors—yellow, blue, and crimson—stretched before her. It reached out toward a bank of white daisies which bordered the distant hills.
"Come, come!" she called to the others. "See, is this not a fair sight?"
The handmaidens came at the call and were lost in wonder at the beauty of the scene.
"Let us gather her majesty's bouquet this morning from the flowers here," suggested one. "I am sure our queen does not know how much beauty lies so close to her own garden."
The others were well pleased with the plan. Together they climbed the stone wall, ran into the field, and gathered a wealth of blossoms. In a little while these field flowers graced the royal table.
Now the queen who, as you know, loved her flowers more than any other one thing in the world, never failed each morning to look at her bouquet and examine with loving care each blossom in it. And it was with no small surprise that she discovered the strange flowers placed that morning upon her table.
"These blossoms are rare, indeed," said she. "Is it possible that my garden contains so many plants that are strangers to me? I have seen blossoms more beautiful than some of these, but never before have I enjoyed a perfume so delicious. To which one of them does it belong, I wonder?" And the queen bent close to the bouquet to see if she could detect the flower with the sweet odor.
"I shall want the same kind of bouquet for many days," she said, smiling.
So it happened that each morning the handmaidens ran to the fields beyond the palace garden, and gathered some of the flowers which had won her majesty's heart.
One morning the queen called her handmaidens to her and said, "The flower with the delicious odor is missing. Do you know which one was not gathered to-day?"