A Fairy Tale within a fairy tale

There was once upon a time a fine King, and he had everything he could wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold and silver, diamonds and rubies, riches of every kind.

This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful Princess that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood all her lessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she was grown up, she was the wonder of the world. Near the Palace where this Princess lived, there was a cottage in which there was a poor little tiny woman, who lived all alone by herself. Not an old woman. Quite a young one.

One day the princess stopped at the cottage and said to the woman, let me see what you keep there. The tiny woman opened a very secret place and showed the princess... a shadow. It was the shadow of someone that had gone by many years before.

"and you keep watch over this? Every single day?" said the princess.
"Yes." said the tiny woman, "because no one so good, or kind, had passed by that way ever since."

The princess realised that of all of her gold and silver, and diamonds, and rubies, she had nothing so precious to her as that shadow was to that tiny woman.