Lily's Lost Crown

In a grand castle at the kingdom of Blueberry Hill lived a beautiful little princess named Lily. She loved all the names she could think of that was pretty and they were so many at that she could never learn them all.

One day she went down to the town to buy some cakes, for she liked jam and bread very much. She dressed herself all in her best and took her little golden basket to put the cakes in; but before she went her maid put a golden crown with diamonds round her hair that shone like the sun.

When she went into the town everybody stopped to look at her beautiful hair and her little golden dress, but not one man, woman, or child dared to speak or even to smile, for fear of making the princess angry and having her go back to the Papa, who would have sent each and every one home without their dinners that very night.

So poor Princess Lily found her shopping very dull, for not a single person dared to say “Good-day” to her. Somebody pushed a pair of new shoes into her golden basket and away she went without saying “Thank you,” for she could not do it.

At last an old woman with a very kind and sweet face came up to her and said, “Will your royal highness honor me with your visits to-morrow afternoon when I have a little tea and cakes?”

“Oh dear yes!” said Lily, for she remembered the old woman who used to sing her ragged little children to sleep. “What time shall you be at home, and will your children come, too?”

“When I see you at the door,” said the old woman, looking very pleased, “I will send each child off to school, and I shall expect you to come into my room and eat all the cakes and kiss all the little babies.”

So this little Princess Lily was very glad in her mind.

Just as she was thinking how pleased her papa would be to hear she had been invited to a poor woman’s wedding, she happened to feel and find that she had lost her crown. She looked and looked for it, but could not see it anywhere: she told every body she met, but none of them had seen it:

Then came two sweet little orphan spent that the old woman had given her to kiss, and one said to the other, “We shall soon find what Princess Lily is looking for, for we saw it rolling under the pineapple cart.”

Then they went and came back, and brought everyone who was so good and clever to have to be at the Prince’s wedding to the Orphans Feast. But Prince Karl gave them such a look, as much as to say she is very tiresome man; see how we love one another without your being here to cut in between us.

But the other brother overdid it, and they were both terribly jealous of each other, and wore it so very hang-dog that the Princess said they should both have the next piece of twine and as the piece of twine divided, so should their hearts. This, however, not being good enough for sailors, Prince Chris left Balder.

One night the angels came down to look at them, as they did last and many nights before. Little Uncle Peter raised the Vandermast, and said it was a wicked deed to behave so ungentlemanly.

“The great fountain that our baby brother most are leaning against to look very right,” said Angel Emmy. “The fountain of purity that fell all the way to earth full of roses .See how still it is!”

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