Once upon a time there was a princess, and she had everything she could wish for, and a great deal more. Now, near the palace there was a cottage in which lived a poor, little, tiny woman, all alone. She was not old, but quite young. And one day, the princess stopped at the cottage and said to the tiny woman, "Let me see what you keep there."
So the tiny woman opened a very secret place and showed the princess a shadow. It was the shadow of someone who had passed by many years before.
"And you keep watch over this every day?" said the princess.
"Yes," said the tiny woman, because no one so good or kind had passed that way ever since.
And the princess realized that of all of gold and silver, her diamonds and rubies, she had nothing so precious to her as that shadow was to that tiny woman.
--- an abridged version of a story told by Amy from Little Dorrit (Dickens)
