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SHE WISHED TO BE A PRINCESS.
A True Story.

Table of Contents

Little Mary had had a volume of Hans Andersen’s Fairy Stories given her at Christmas. The story she liked best was “The Princess and the Pea,” for, like all little girls, little Mary had a natural desire to be a Princess.

When she went to bed at night with her doll little Mary would think to herself, “Oh, how beautiful to be a real princess of such very fine blood as to feel a little bit of a pea under twenty mattresses!”

One morning a comforting idea came to little Mary. “Who knows,” she said to herself, “with all my very many great grandfathers and grandmothers, but p’raps I am related to some King or Queen way back?”

Thereupon, she went to her mother’s pantry and took a bean from the jar—as large a one as she could find—and, going to her room, put it carefully under the hair mattress. That night she went to bed happy, with joyful hopes.

In the morning little Mary’s elder sister found her with her head buried in her pillow crying. “Oh,” little Mary sobbed, “I did think I might have just a little speck of royal blood in my veins, but I couldn’t feel even that big bean under just one mattress!”

Nothing would comfort little Mary until her mama explained to her that even princesses were not happy unless they had good hearts; and she could have, if she tried, just as good and royal a heart as any Princess under the sun.

Anne Fiske Davenport.