Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/207

 In its beak it held a white pearl, which it dropped upon the queen's knees.

"This is one of the tears you shed before the high altar," twittered the swallow, "God gives it you back in the likeness of a pearl."

At the same moment came another swallow through the wall, and another and another, and in a twinkling the whole prison was filled with a flight of birds.

Each had a white pearl in its beak, which it laid upon Blanzeflor's lap.

"Here are the tears you shed for those who were poor and sad at heart," they chirped; "not one has fallen in vain."

At last came a little bird with a maimed wing; in its beak was the little crooked pearl, for this, too, had been threaded on the necklace.

Blanzeflor sat perfectly still and let the pearls lie upon her knees, for she could not touch them with her fettered hands. Then the sun rose red in the East and shone into the prison so that it streamed with light like heaven itself.

But just then the king came in with all his retinue. He had come to take the queen away to be beheaded. But when he saw her