"Why, what do you want to get out for?" asked Pet, looking down at them. "To help the poor, of course!" said the money. "We were put in here by the good queen, your mother, and saved up for the poor who deserve to be assisted. But now every one has forgotten us, and we are rusting away while there is so much distress in the kingdom." "Well," said Pet, "I shall see to your case; for I promise you I am going to know more about these wonderful poor." She shut up the bureau, and went on further exploring the rooms, and now you may be pretty sure her ears were wide open for every sound. It was not long before she heard a creaking and squeaking that came from a large wicker-basket which was twisting about in the most discontented manner. "Once on a time I was filled with bread, But now I stand as if I were dead," mourned the basket. "And why were you filled with bread?" asked Pet. "Your mother used to fill me," squeaked the basket, "and give the bread out of me to feed the poor." "Why! do you mean to say that the poor have no bread to eat?" asked Pet. "That is really a most dreadful thing. I must speak to my Government about these poor immediately. Whatever my mother did must have been perfectly right at all events, and I shall do the same!" And off she went back towards her nursery, meeting all her twelve nurses flying along the corridors to look for her. "Go directly and tell my Government that I want to speak to it," said Queen Pet, quite grandly; and she was brought down to the great Council Chamber. "Your Majesty has had too much plum-pudding and a bad dream afterwards!" said the Government when Pet had told the whole story about the gowns, and the money, and the bread-basket, and the poor; and then the Government took a pinch of snuff and sent Queen Pet back to her nursery. The next day, when all the nurses had gone to their dinner again, Pet was leaning out of her nursery window, with her two elbows on the sills and her face between her hands, and she was gazing down on the charming gardens below, and away off over the fields and hills of her beautiful kingdom of Goldenlands. "Where do the poor live, I wonder?" she thought; "and I wonder what they are like? Oh, that I could be a good queen like my mother, and be of use to my people! How I wish that I had a ladder to reach down into the garden, and then I could run away all over my kingdom and find things out for myself." Just as she thought thus an exquisite butterfly perched on her finger and said gaily,-- "A thousand spiders All weaving in a row, Can weave you a ladder To fit your little toe." "Can they, indeed?" cried Pet; "and are you acquainted with the spiders?" "I should think so, indeed," said the butterfly; "I am engaged to be married to a spider; I have been engaged ever since I was a caterpillar."