The sufferings of the poor girl were greatly increased by her brother's misery; and what was her horror when she heard him mutter suddenly: "I will go and steal something. The shops are full of everything. I won't let her die!" Then before she had time to stop him he had darted out of the room.

Just at this moment Pet's clock ran down, and she flew off, forgetting Time's commands, and only bent on reaching her palace. But her strange friend appeared in her path as before.

"Oh, don't stop me !" cried Pet. "The girl will die, and the boy will turn out a thief!"

"Leave them to me! leave them to me !" said Time, "and go on obediently doing as I bid you."

Pet went her way in tears this time, still fancying she could feel the poor sick girl's woful heart beating in her own breast. But byand-by she cheered herself, remembering Time's promise, and hurried on as fast as she could. She met with a great many sad people after this, and lived a great many different lives, so that she became quite familiar with all the sorrows and difficulties of the poor. She reflected that it was a very sad thing that there should be so much distress in her rich kingdom, and felt much puzzled to know how she could remedy the matter. One day, having just left an extremely wretched family, she travelled a long way without stopping, and looking around she had not seen a very poor-looking dwelling for many miles. All the people she met seemed happy and merry, and they sang over their work as if they had very little care. When she peeped into the little roadside houses she found that they were neatly furnished and comfortable. Even in the towns she could not find any starving people, except a few wicked ones who would not takethe trouble to be industrious. At last she asked a man what was the reason that she could not meet with any miserable people.

66

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 neighbouring country to her own. She immediately longed to see this wise king and learn his laws, sothat 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 noblelooking 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 for ever. 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 for ever, 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 poor 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!

All her searches for it proved vain. It was quite evident that the key must have dropped through a hole in the old woman's tattered pocket, and fallen somewhere among the heaps of dried leaves, or into the wildernesses of the brushwood of the forest.

"Tick, tick! tick, tick!" went that unmerciful clock from its

perch on the wall, all through the long days and nights, and poor Pet was in despair at the thought of living locked up in the old woman all her life. Now, indeed, she could groan most heartily when the old woman groaned, and shed bitter tears which rolled plentifully down the old woman's wrinkled cheeks and over her

nose.

"Oh, Time, Time, my friend!" she thought, "will you not come to my assistance ?"

But though Time fully intended to stand her friend all through her troubles, still he did not choose to help her at that particular And so days, weeks, and months went past; and then the years began to go over, and Pet was still locked up in the miserable old woman.

moment.

Seven years had passed away and Pet had become in some degree reconciled to her sorrowful existence. She wandered about the forest picking up her sticks and trying to cheer herself up a little by gathering bouquets of the pretty forest flowers. People passing by often saw the sad figure, all in gray hair and tatters, sitting on a trunk of a fallen tree wailing and moaning, and, of course, they thought it was altogether the poor old woman lamenting for her son. They never thought of its being also Pet, bewailing her dreary imprisonment.

One fine spring morning she went out as usual to pick her sticks, and looking up from her work, she saw suddenly a beautiful, noblelooking young figure on horseback spring up in a distant glade of violets, and come riding towards her as if out of a dream. youth came near she recognised his bright blue eyes and his silver mantle, and she said to herself:

As the

"Oh! I declare it is the young Prince of Silver-country; only he has grown so tall! He has been growing all these years, and is quite a young man. And I ought to have been growing too; but I am left behind, only a child still; if indeed I ever come to stop being an old woman!"

"Will you tell me, my good woman," said the young prince, "if you have heard of any person who has lost a little gold key in this forest. I have found

Pet screamed with delight at these words.

“Oh, give it to me, give it to me!" she implored. "It is mine. It is mine!"

The prince gave it to her, and no sooner did it touch her hand than the clock ran down, and Pet was released from her imprisonment in the old woman. Instantly the young prince saw before him a lovely young maiden of his own age, for Pet had really been growing all the time though she had not known it. The old woman also stared in amazement, not knowing where the lady could have come from, and the prince begged Pet to tell him who she was and how she had come there so suddenly. Then all three, the prince, Pet, and the old woman, sat upon the trunk of a tree while Pet related the story of her life and its adventures.

The old woman was so frightened at the thought that another

person had been living in her for seven years that she got quite ill; however, the prince made her a present of a bright gold coin, and this helped to restore her peace of mind.

"And so you lived a whole month among us and we never knew you!" cried the prince, in astonishment and delight. "Oh, I hope we shall never part again, now that we have met !"

"I hope we shan't!" said Pet; "and won't you come home with me now and settle with my Government? for I am dreadfully afraid .of it."

So he lifted Pet up on his horse, and she sat behind him; then they bade good-bye to the old woman, promising not to forget her, and rode off through the forests and over the fields to the palace of the kings and queens of Goldenlands.

Oh dear, how delighted the people were to see their little queen coming home again! The Government had been behaving dreadfully all this long time, and had been most unkind to the kingdom. Everybody knew it was really Pet, because she had grown so like her mother, whom they had all loved; and besides they quite expected to see her coming, as messengers had been sent into all the corners of the world searching for her. As these messengers had been gone about eight or nine years, the people thought it was high time for Queen Pet to appear. The cruel Government, however, was in a great fright, as it had counted on being allowed to go on reigning for many years longer, and it ran away in a hurry out of the back door of the palace, and escaped to the other side of the world; where, as nobody knew anything of its bad ways, it was able to begin life over again under a new name.

Just at the same moment a fresh excitement broke out among the joyful people when it was known that thirty-five of the queen's royal names, lost on the day of her christening, had been found at last. And where do you think they were found? One had dropped into a far corner of the waistcoat pocket of the old clerk, who had been so busy saying "Amen," that he had not noticed the accident. Only yesterday, while making a strict search for a small morsel of tobacco to replenish his pipe, had he discovered the precious name! Twentyfive more of the names had rolled into a mouse-hole where they had lain snugly hidden among generations of young mice ever since; six had been carried off by a most audacious sparrow who had built his nest in the rafters of the church-roof; and none of these thirty-one names would ever have seen the light again only that repairs and decorations were getting made in the old building for the coronation of the queen. Last of all, four names were brought to the palace by young girls of the village whose mothers had stolen them through vanity on the day of the christening, thinking they would be pretty for their own little babes. The girls being now grown up had sense enough to know that such finery was not becoming to their station; besides, they did not see the fun of having names which they were obliged to keep secret. So Nancy, Polly, Betsy, and Jane (the names they had now chosen instead) brought back their stolen goods and restored them to the queen's own hand. The fate of the remaining names still remains a mystery.

Now I dare say you are wondering what these curious names could have been; all I can tell you about them is that they were very long, and grand, and hard to pronounce; for, if I were to write them down here for you, they would cover a great many pages, and interrupt the story quite too much. At all events, they did very well for a queen to be crowned by; but I can assure you that nobody who loved the little royal lady ever called her anything but Pet.

Well, after this, Pet and the Prince of Silver-country put their heads together and made such beautiful laws that poverty and sorrow vanished immediately out of Goldenlands. All the people in whom Pet had lived were brought to dwell near the palace, and were made joyous and comfortable for the rest of their lives. A special honour was conferred on the families of the spiders and the butterfly, who had so good-naturedly come to the assistance of the little queen. The old gowns were taken out of the wardrobe and given to those who needed them; and very much delighted they were to see the light again, though some of the poor things had suffered sadly from the moths since the day when they had made their complaint to Pet. Full occupation was given to the money and the bread-basket; and, in fact, there was not a speck of discontent to be found in the whole kingdom.

This being so, there was now leisure for the great festival of the marriage and coronation of Queen Pet and the Prince. Such a magnificent festival never was heard of before. All the crowned heads of the world were present, and among them appeared Pet's old friend Time, dressed up so that she scarcely knew him, with a splendid embroidered mantle covering his poor bare bones.

"Ah," he said to Pet, "you were near destroying all our plans by your carelessness in losing the key! However, I managed to get you out of the scrape. See now that you prove a good, obedient wife, and a loving mother to all your people, and, if you do, be sure I shall always remain your friend, and get you safely out of all your troubles."

"Oh, thank you!" said Pet; "you have indeed been a good friend to me. But I never found that jewel that you bid me look for. I quite forgot about it!"

"I am having it set in your Majesty's crown," said Time, with a low bow.

Then the rejoicings began; and between ringing of bells, cheering, singing, and clapping of hands, there was such an uproarious din of delight in Goldenlands that I had to put my fingers in my ears and run away! I am very glad, however, that I stayed long enough to pick up this story for you; and I hope that my young friends will

"Never forget

Little Queen Pet,
Who was kind to all

The poor people she met !"