went to the queen's apartment, where the good lady was sitting with
her little son Mamillus, who was just beginning to tell one of his
best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking
the child away, sent Hermione to prison.

Mamillus, though but a very young child, loved his mother tenderly;
and when he saw her so dishonoured, and found she was taken from him
to be put into a prison, he took it deeply to heart, and drooped and
pined away by slow degrees, losing his appetite and his sleep, till it
was thought his grief would kill him.

The king, when he had sent his queen to prison, commanded Cleomenes
and Dion, two Sicilian lords, to go to Delphos, there to inquire of
the oracle at the temple of Apollo, if his queen had been unfaithful
to him.

When Hermione had been a short time in prison, she was brought to bed
of a daughter; and the poor lady received much comfort from the sight
of her pretty baby, and she said to it, "My poor little prisoner, I am
as innocent as you are."

Hermione had a kind friend in the noble-spirited Paulina, who was the
wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord; and when the Lady Paulina heard
her royal mistress was brought to bed, she went to the prison where
Hermione was confined; and she said to Emilia, a lady who attended
upon Hermione, "I pray you, Emilia, tell the good queen, if her
majesty dare trust me with her little babe, I will carry it to the
king its father; we do not know how he may soften at the sight of his
innocent child." "Most worthy madam," replied Emilia, "I will acquaint
the queen with your noble offer; she was wishing to-day that she had