"Oh," he said, "it is because of our good king; his laws are so wise that nobody is allowed to want."
"Where does he live? and what country is this?" asked Pet.
"This is Silver-country," said the man, "and our king lives over yonder in a castle built of blocks of silver ornamented with rubies and pearls."
Pet then remembered that she had heard her nurses talk about Silver-country, which was the neighboring country to her own. She immediately longed to see this wise king and learn his laws, so that she might know how to behave when she came to sit on her throne, and she trotted on towards the Silver Castle, which now began to rise out of a wreath of clouds in the distance. Arrived at the place, she crept up to the windows of the great dining-hall and peeped in, and there was the good king sitting at his table in a mantle of cloth of silver, and a glorious crown, wrought most exquisitely out of the good wishes of his people, encircling his head. Opposite to him sat his beautiful queen, and beside him a noble-looking lad who was his only son. Pet, seeing this happy sight, immediately formed her wish, and in another moment found herself the king of Silver-country sitting at the head of his board.
"Oh, what a good, great, warm, happy heart it is," thought Pet, and she felt more joy than she had ever known in her life before. "A month will be quite too short a time to live in this noble being. But I must make the best of my time and learn everything I can."
Pet now found her mind filled with the most wonderfully good, wise thoughts, and she took great pains to learn them off by heart, so that she might keep them in her memory forever. Besides all the education she received in this way, she also enjoyed a great happiness, of which she had as yet known nothing, the happiness of living in a loving family, where there was no terrible sorrow or fear to embitter tender hearts. She felt how fondly the king loved his only son, and how sweet it was to the king to know that his boy loved him. When the young prince leaned against his father's knees and told him all about his sports, Pet would remember that she also had had a father, and that he would have loved her like this if he had lived. She could have lived here in the Silver Castle forever, but that could not be. One day the little gold clock ran down and Pet was obliged to hasten away out of Silver-country.
She made great efforts to remember all the king's wise thoughts, and kept repeating his good laws over and over again to herself as she went along. She was now back again in her own country, and the first person she met was a very miserable-looking old woman who lived in a little mud hovel in a forest, and supported herself wretchedly by gathering a few sticks for sale. She was so weak, and so often ill that she could not earn much, and she was dreadfully lonely, as all her children were dead but one; and that one, a brave son whom she loved dearly, had gone away across the world in hope of making money for her. He had never come back, and she feared that he too was dead. Pet did not know these things, of course, until she had formed her wish and was living in the old woman.
This was the saddest existence that Pet had experienced yet, and she felt very anxious for the month to pass away. After the happiness she had enjoyed in Silver-country, the excessive hardship and loneliness of the old woman's life seemed very hard to bear. All day long she wandered about the woods, picking up sticks and tying them in little bundles, and, perhaps, in the end she would only receive a penny for the work of her day. Some days she could not leave her hut, and would lie there alone without anything to eat.
"Oh, my son, my dear son!" she would cry, "where are you now, and will you ever come back to me?"
Pet watched her clock very eagerly, longing for the month to come to an end; but the clock still kept going and going, as if it never meant to stop. For a good while Pet thought that it was only because of her unhappiness and impatience that the time seemed so long, but at last she discovered to her horror that her key was lost!