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The Seeds of Love.
53

it, and would send it away if she dared,” said the woman.

Queen Blanchelys thanked her and then sat down by the roadside, and waited till night came and every one was asleep in bed. Then she rose and stole quietly into the palace, when no one heard her, and first she took a piece of paper, and on it she wrote how she had gone away because the King did not love her, and how Love had told her that Zaire had killed her rose-tree from jealousy, and had stolen the King’s love, and she prayed that the King would be good to her little son when she was dead, and that she might be buried under her rose-tree. Then she went up-stairs, and first she went to the bedside of her cousin Zaire. “Ah, cruel. cousin Zaire,” she said, “I have never hurt you. Why did you hate me so? But you shall never be Queen, in my place, though you are dreaming it now.”

Then she went to the bedside of her little son, and she kissed him and fondled him, but she did not wake him.

“Ah, little son,” she said, “if I had not come home to-night, to-morrow you would have had a cruel step-mother in my place, but now you will

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