"I'm sick of children!" said the king to his secretary, as he
finished dictating the direction.
XI.
After Prince was gone, the princess, by degrees, fell back into some
of her bad old ways, from which only the presence of the dog, not
her own betterment, had kept her. She never grew nearly so selfish
again, but she began to let her angry old self lift up its head once
more, until by and by she grew so bad that the shepherdess declared
she should not stop in the house a day longer, for she was quite
unendurable.
"It is all very well for you, husband," she said, "for you haven't
her all day about you, and only see the best of her. But if you had
her in work instead of play hours, you would like her no better than
I do. And then it's not her ugly passions only, but when she's in
one of her tantrums, it's impossible to get any work out of her. At
such times she's just as obstinate as--as--as"--
She was going to say "as Agnes," but the feelings of a mother
overcame her, and she could not utter the words.
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