Notwithstanding the differences between the two girls, which were, indeed, so many that most people would have said they were not in the least alike, they were the same in this, that each cared more for her own fancies and desires than for any thing else in the world. But I will tell you another difference: the princess was like several children in one—such was the variety of her moods; and in one mood she had no recollection or care about any thing whatever belonging to a previous mood—not even if it had left her but a moment before, and had been so violent as to make her ready to put her hand in the fire to get what she wanted. Plainly she was the mere¹ puppet of her moods, and more than that, any cunning nurse who knew her well enough could call or send away those moods almost as she pleased, like a showman pulling strings² behind a show. Agnes, on the contrary, seldom changed her mood, but kept that of calm assured self-satisfaction. Father nor mother had ever by wise punishment helped her to gain a victory over herself, and do what she did not like or choose; and their folly³ in reasoning with one unreasonable⁴ had fixed⁵ her in her conceit⁶. She would actually nod her head to herself in complacent⁷ pride that she had stood out against them. This, however, was not so difficult as to justify⁸ even the pride of having conquered, seeing she loved them so little, and paid so little attention to the arguments and persuasions⁹ they used. Neither, when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman’s cloak, did she behave in the least like the princess, for she was not afraid. “She’ll soon set me down,” she said, too self-important to suppose that any one would dare do her an injury.

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