Chapter III: Part 3

But the Queen was anxious and frightened, and while the Prince was still a child she sent messengers to the Courts of all the neighbouring Kings and Queens to tell them what had been foretold, which, indeed, most of them knew, having been at the christening. And she begged such of them as had daughters to send them as kitchen-maids, that so the Prince might at least fall in love with a real Princess. And as the Prince grew up he was so handsome and so brave, fearing nothing but cats, which, of course, he never saw, though he dreamed of them often and woke screaming, and also so brilliant and good, that, his father’s kingdom, being beyond compare the finest in all the round world, the young daughters of Kings vied with each other as to who should find favour in the eyes of the Queen-Mother, and so get leave to serve in the kitchen, each nursing the hope that some day the Prince would see her and love her, and perhaps even marry her. And he was very good friends with all the noble kitchen-maids, but he loved none of them, till one day he saw, at a window of the tower where the kitchen was, a bright face and bright hair tied round with a scarlet kerchief. And as he looked at the face it was withdrawn—but the Prince had lost his heart. He kept his secret safe in the place where his heart had been, and schemed and plotted to see this fair lady again; for when he went among the royal kitchen-maids she was not there with them. And he looked morning, noon, and evening, but he never could see her. So then he said—

“I must watch o’ nights—perhaps she is kept in prison in the tower above the kitchen, and at night those who watch her may sleep, and so I shall be able to talk to her.”

So he dressed in dark clothes and hid in the shadow of the palace courtyard and watched all one night. And he saw nothing. But in the early morning, when the setting moon and the rising sun were mixing their lights in the sky, he heard a heavy bolt shot back, and the door of the kitchen tower opened slowly. The Prince crouched behind a buttress and watched, and he saw the fair maid with the bright hair under the red kerchief. She swept the doorstep, and she drew water from the well in the middle of the courtyard; and presently he crept to the kitchen window and saw her light the fire and wash the dishes, and make all neat and clean within. And the Prince’s eyes followed her in all she did, and the more he looked at her the more he loved her. And at last he heard sounds as of folks stirring above, so he crept away, keeping close to the wall, and so back to his own rooms. And this he did again on the next morning, and on the next. And on the third morning, as he stood looking through the window at the girl with the bright hair and the bright kerchief, the gold chain he wore clinked against the stone of the window-sill. The maid started, and the bowl she held dropped on to the brick floor of the kitchen and broke into twenty pieces; and then and there she sat down on the floor beside it, and began to cry bitterly.

The Prince ran in and knelt beside her.

“Don’t cry, dear,” he said, “I’ll get you another bowl.”

“It isn’t that,” she sobbed, “but now they’ll send me away.”

“Who will?”

“The noble Kitchen-Maids. They keep me to do the work because, being Kings’ daughters, they don’t know how to do anything; but the Queen doesn’t know that there is a Real Kitchen-maid here, and now you have found out they will send me away.”

And she went on crying.

“Then you are a Real Kitchen-maid, and not noble at all?” said the Prince.

She stopped crying for a minute to say “No.”

“Never mind,” said the Prince. “You are twice as pretty as all the Kings’ daughters put together and twenty times as dear.”

At that she stopped crying for good and all, and looked up at him from the floor where she sat.

“Yes you are,” he said, “and I love you with all my heart.”

And with that he caught her in his arms and kissed her; and the Real Kitchen-Maid laid her face against his, and her heart beat wildly, for she knew what the Prince did not, and what, indeed, all the folk knew except the Prince, that this had been foretold at his christening; but she knew also that though he loved her, he was not to marry her, since it was his dreadful destiny to marry some one with four feet and no hands.

“I wish I had no hands and four feet,” said the Real Kitchen-maid to herself. “I wouldn’t mind a bit, since it is me he loves.”

“What are you saying?” asked the Prince.

“I am saying that you must go,” said she. “If their Kitchen Highnesses find you here with me they’ll tear me into little pieces, for they all love you—to a Highness.”

“And you,” he whispered, “how much do you love me?”

“Oh,” she answered, “I love you better than my right hand and my left.”

And the Prince thought that a very strange answer. He went through that day in a happy dream; but he did not tell his dream to any one, lest some harm should come to the Real Kitchen-Maid. For he meant to marry her, and he had a feeling that his parents would not approve of the match.

Now that night, when the whole palace was asleep, the Real Kitchen-Maid got up and crept out past the sleepy sentinel and went home to her father the farmer and got one of his great white cart horses and rode away through the woods to the cavern where the Great White Rat sits sleeplessly guarding the Magic Cat’s-eye.

And every one wondered why he guarded it so carefully, for it seemed to have no great value. But the Great White Rat watched it constantly, without ever closing one of those round bright rat’-eyes of his, and when folk sought to lay hands on it he said—

“Be careful: it has the power to change you into a mouse.”

On which folk dropped it hastily and went their ways, leaving him still on guard.

To him now went the little Kitchen-Maid, and asked for help, for he was thousands of years old, and had more wisdom between his nose and ears than all the books in all the world. She told him all that had happened.

“Now what shall I do?” she said. And the Great White Rat, never shifting his eyes from the Magic Cat’s-eye, answered—

“Keep your own counsel and be contented. The Prince loves you.”

“But,” said the Real Kitchen-Maid, “he is not to marry me, but a horrible creature with four feet and no hands.”

“Keep your secret and be content,” the Great White Rat repeated, “and if ever you see him in danger from a lady with four feet and no hands, come straight to me.”

So the Real Kitchen-Maid went back to the Palace, and set to work to clean pots and pans, for now it was bright dewy daylight, and the night had gone. And before the rest were awake again her Prince came to her and vowed he loved her more than life; so she kept her secret and was content.

At the time of the Prince’s christening the King had banished all cats from the kingdom, because he could not bear to see his son show fear of anything. But now and then strangers, not knowing of the edict, brought cats to that country, and if the Prince saw one of these cats he was taken with a trembling and a paleness, standing like stone awhile, and presently, with shrieks of terror, fleeing the spot. And it was now a long time since he had seen a cat.

Now, soon after the Prince had found out how he loved the Real Kitchen-Maid, his father and mother died suddenly as they were sitting hand in hand, for they loved each other so much that it was not possible for either to stay here without the other.

So then the Prince wept bitterly, and would not be comforted, and the Court stood about him with a long face, wearing its new mourning. And as he sat there with his face hidden Something came through the Palace gate and up the marble stairs and into the great hall where the Prince sat on the steps of his father’s throne weeping. And, before the courtiers could draw breath or decide whether it was Court etiquette for them to do anything while the Prince was crying except to stand still and look sad, the creature came up to the Prince and began to rub itself against his arm. And he, still hiding his face, reached out his hand and stroked it!

Then all the Court drew a deep breath, for they saw that the thing that had come in was a great black Cat.

And the Prince raised his eyes, and they looked to see him shrink and shriek; but instead he passed his hand over the black fur and said—

“Poor Pussy, then!”

And at these words the whole Court fled—by window and door. The courtiers took horse, those who had carriages went away in them, those who had none went on foot, and in less than a minute the Prince and the Cat were left alone together.

For the Court was learned in witch law, and knowing the Prince’s horror of cats it saw at once that a cat he was not afraid of was no cat at all, but a witch in that shape. Therefore the courtiers and the whole Royal household fled trembling and hid themselves.

All but the little Real Kitchen-Maid. She saw with terror that the Cat, or rather the witch in Cat’s shape, had done what no one else could do—roused the Prince from his dull dream of grief. And then she remembered the fate which Malevola had foretold for him—that he should marry a lady with four feet and no hands.

“Alack-a-day!” she cried. “This witch has four feet and no hands; but she can have hands whenever she chooses, and be a woman by her magic arts as easily as she can be a cat. And then he will love her—and what will become of me? Or, worse, she may marry him only to torment him. She may shut him up in some enchanted dungeon far from the light of day. Such things have happened before now.”

So she stood, hidden by the blue arras, and wrung her hands, and the tears ran down her cheeks. And all the time the black Cat purred to the Prince, and the Prince stroked the black Cat, and any one could have seen that he was every moment becoming more deeply bewitched. And still the Real Kitchen-Maid crouched behind the arras, and her heart ached that it knew no way to save him. Then suddenly she remembered the words of the Great White Rat—

“If ever you see him in danger from a lady with four feet and no hands come straight to me.”

Now surely was the time, for the Prince, she knew, was in desperate danger.

The Real Kitchen-Maid crept silently down the marble stairs, but once she was out of the Palace she ran like the wind to the stable. No men were about there—all had followed the example of the Court, and had run away when they heard of the strange coming of the witch-Cat. And of all the many horses that had stood in the stable only one remained, for each man in his fright had saddled the first horse that came to hand and ridden off on it. And the one that still stayed there was the Prince’s own black charger. He had had no mind to be saddled in haste by a stranger, and had turned and bitten the stranger who had attempted it. So he was there alone.

Now the little Kitchen-Maid lifted the Prince’s gold-broidered saddle from its perch, and the weight of it was such that she could not have carried it but for the heavy heart she bore because of her love to the Prince and his danger, and that made all else seem light. She put the saddle on the charger, and the jewelled bridle. And he neighed with pleasure, for he understood, being a horse who could see as far into a stone wall as most people. And when he was saddled he knelt for her to mount, and then up and away like the wind, and she had no need to guide him with the reins, for he found the way and kept it. He galloped steadily on, and the sun went down and the night grew dark, and he went on, and on, and on without stumble or pause, till at moonrise he halted before the house of the Great White Rat.

Then, as the Real Kitchen-Maid sprang down, the Great White Rat came out from his house and spoke. “You’ve come for it, then?”

“For what?”

“The Magic Cat’s-eye. I’ve guarded it some thousands of years. I knew there would be a use for it at last. He may be saved yet, if some one should love him well enough to die for him.”

“I do that,” said the little Kitchen-Maid, and took the Cat’s-eye in her hands.

“Swallow it,” said the White Rat, “and you’ll turn into a mouse.”

The little maid swallowed it at once, and, behold! she was a little mouse.

“What am I to do?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you,” said the Great White Rat, “but Love will tell you.”

So the little Kitchen-Maid, in the form of the mouse, ran up one of the horse’s legs, and held tight on to the saddle with all her little claws.

And as the great horse galloped back towards the palace in the moonlight, she thought and thought, and at last she said to herself—

“The witch is in cat’s shape, and she must have cat nature, so she will run after a mouse. She will run after _me_, and if I can lead her to a running stream she will leap across it, and then she will have to take her own shape again. That must be what the Great White Rat meant me to do. And if the Cat catches me—well, at least if I can’t save my Prince I can die for him.”

And the thought warmed her heart as the great horse thundered on through the dawn-light.

When at last, creeping softly on little noiseless feet, the Mouse-Kitchen-Maid re-entered the great hall, she saw that she was only just in time, for the black Cat was purring and looking back at the Prince as she walked, waving her black tail towards the further door of the hall, and the Prince, more bewitched than ever, was slowly following her.

Then the Real-Kitchen-Maid-Mouse uttered a squeak, and rushed across the porphyry floor, and the black Cat, true to its cat nature, left purring at the Prince and sprang after the Mouse, and the Mouse at its best speed, made for the garden where ran the stream that fed the marble basins where the royal gold-fish lived. The Prince understood nothing save that the enchanting black furry creature was leaving him, and in an instant he was alone. He followed to the door, and saw the Cat springing along the passage down the stairs—he followed fast—then along another passage that passed the foot of the back stairs, and he saw that the back stairs were like a water-fall—water was running down in a torrent and meandering away down the brick passage and out into the faint new sunshine.

When the Mouse saw this stream, she thought, “I’m saved.” She never thought of wondering how a stream came to be running down the back stairs of the palace. When she came to think of it afterwards she always believed that the Great White Rat had managed it somehow. She never knew that it was really a great flood from the royal bathroom, where the royal housemaid, in her eagerness to run away from the witch, had left all the royal bath-taps full on.

The Mouse bounded across the stream—the Cat saw the danger, but she could not stop herself. She, too, crossed the stream, and as she crossed it she turned into the wicked fairy Malevola—cobwebs, and snakes, and newts, and bat’s-wings, and all.

The Prince put his hand to his head like one awakening from sleep, and the horrible fairy vanished suddenly and for ever.

Then the Mouse ran trembling to the Prince, and in its thin little mouse’s voice told him all.

“My love and my lady,” he said, holding the Mouse against his cheek. “I will marry you now. That will carry out the wicked fairy’s prophecy. Then we will go back to the Great White Rat, and you shall be changed into a Princess.”

So the Prince rang the church bells till all the people came out of their holes where they had been hiding, to see the strange spectacle of a Prince married to a Mouse.

And directly they were married they set off on the black charger, and when they reached the Great White Rat they told their tale.

“And now,” said the Prince joyously, “if you will change her into a lady again we will go home at once and begin living happily ever after.”

The Great White Rat looked at them gravely.

“It’s impossible,” he said. “I am sorry, but the effects of the Magic Cat’s-eye are _permanent_. Once a mouse, always a mouse, if you get moused by the Magic Cat’s-eye.”

The Prince and the Mouse looked sadly at each other. This was the last thing they had expected. The Great White Rat looked at them earnestly. Then he said—

“If it would be of any use to you, I’ve got another Magic Cat’s-eye.”

He held it out. The Prince took it gladly. Kingdom and the life of a king were nothing to him compared with the love and happiness of a Real-Kitchen-Maid disguised as a mouse. He put the stone to his lips.

“You know what’ll happen if you do,” said the Great White Rat.

“I shall change into a mouse and live happy ever after,” said the Prince gaily.

“Perhaps,” said the Great White Rat, “nothing is impossible if people love each other enough.”

“You mustn’t,” cried the Mouse, trying to get between his lips and the Cat’s-eye.

“My dear little Real Kitchen-Maid,” said the Prince tenderly, “you have saved my life—and you _are_ my life. I would rather be a mouse with you than a king without you!” And with that he swallowed the Cat’s-eye, and two small mice stood side by side before the Great White Rat. Very kindly he looked at them. Then he pulled a hair from his left whisker and laid it across their little brown backs. And on the instant there stood up a Prince and a Princess and at their feet lay the little empty mouse-skins.

“It’s lucky for you,” said the Great White Rat, “that you chose to swallow the Cat’s-eye, because people who have been moused by that means can never be un-moused except _in pairs_. Nothing is impossible if people only love each other enough.”

So the Prince and his bride returned to the palace and lived happy ever after. They were as happy as if they had been mice—which, in a country where there are no cats, is saying a good deal. Of course the Prince is still afraid of cats. But the curious thing is that now his wife is afraid of them too. Perhaps she learnt that lesson when she was a mouse for his sake. He, when he was a mouse for hers, learned this lesson, which is also the moral of this story: “Nothing is impossible if people only love each other enough.”

_MELISANDE_

_OR, LONG AND SHORT DIVISION_

WHEN the Princess Melisande was born, her mother, the Queen, wished to have a christening party, but the King put his foot down and said he would not have it.

“I’ve seen too much trouble come of christening parties,” said he. “However carefully you keep your visiting-book, some fairy or other is sure to get left out, and you know what _that_ leads to. Why, even in my own family, the most shocking things have occurred. The Fairy Malevola was not asked to my great-grandmother’s christening—and you know all about the spindle and the hundred years’ sleep.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said the Queen. “My own cousin by marriage forgot some stuffy old fairy or other when she was sending out the cards for her daughter’s christening, and the old wretch turned up at the last moment, and the girl drops toads out of her mouth to this day.”

“Just so. And then there was that business of the mouse and the kitchen-maids,” said the King; “we’ll have no nonsense about it. I’ll be her godfather, and you shall be her godmother, and we won’t ask a single fairy; then none of them can be offended.”

“Unless they all are,” said the Queen.

And that was exactly what happened. When the King and the Queen and the baby got back from the christening the parlourmaid met them at the door, and said—

“Please, your Majesty, several ladies have called. I told them you were not at home, but they all said they’d wait.”

“Are they in the parlour?” asked the Queen.

“I’ve shown them into the Throne Room, your Majesty,” said the parlourmaid. “You see, there are several of them.”

There were about seven hundred. The great Throne Room was crammed with fairies, of all ages and of all degrees of beauty and ugliness—good fairies and bad fairies, flower fairies and moon fairies, fairies like spiders and fairies like butterflies—and as the Queen opened the door and began to say how sorry she was to have kept them waiting, they all cried, with one voice, “Why didn’t you ask _me_ to your christening party?”

“I haven’t had a party,” said the Queen, and she turned to the King and whispered, “I told you so.” This was her only consolation.

“You’ve had a christening,” said the fairies, all together.

“I’m very sorry,” said the poor Queen, but Malevola pushed forward and said, “Hold your tongue,” most rudely.

Malevola is the oldest, as well as the most wicked, of the fairies. She is deservedly unpopular, and has been left out of more christening parties than all the rest of the fairies put together.

“Don’t begin to make excuses,” she said, shaking her finger at the Queen. “That only makes your conduct worse. You know well enough what happens if a fairy is left out of a christening party. We are all going to give our christening presents _now_. As the fairy of highest social position, I shall begin. The Princess shall be bald.”

The Queen nearly fainted as Malevola drew back, and another fairy, in a smart bonnet with snakes in it, stepped forward with a rustle of bats’ wings. But the King stepped forward too.

“No you don’t!” said he. “I wonder at you, ladies, I do indeed. How can you be so unfairylike? Have none of you been to school—have none of you studied the history of your own race? Surely you don’t need a poor, ignorant King like me to tell you that this is _no go_?”

“How dare you?” cried the fairy in the bonnet, and the snakes in it quivered as she tossed her head. “It is my turn, and I say the Princess shall be——”

The King actually put his hand over her mouth.

“Look here,” he said; “I won’t have it. Listen to reason—or you’ll be sorry afterwards. A fairy who breaks the traditions of fairy history goes out—you know she does—like the flame of a candle. And all tradition shows that only _one_ bad fairy is ever forgotten at a christening party and the good ones are always invited; so either this is not a christening party, or else you were all invited except one, and, by her own showing, that was Malevola. It nearly always is. Do I make myself clear?”

Several of the better-class fairies who had been led away by Malevola’s influence murmured that there was something in what His Majesty said.

“Try it, if you don’t believe me,” said the King; “give your nasty gifts to my innocent child—but as sure as you do, out you go, like a candle-flame. Now, then, will you risk it?”

No one answered, and presently several fairies came up to the Queen and said what a pleasant party it had been, but they really must be going. This example decided the rest. One by one all the fairies said goodbye and thanked the Queen for the delightful afternoon they had spent with her.

“It’s been quite too lovely,” said the lady with the snake-bonnet; “_do_ ask us again soon, dear Queen. I shall be so _longing_ to see you again, and the _dear_ baby,” and off she went, with the snake-trimming quivering more than ever.

When the very last fairy was gone the Queen ran to look at the baby—she tore off its Honiton lace cap and burst into tears. For all the baby’s downy golden hair came off with the cap, and the Princess Melisande was as bald as an egg.

“Don’t cry, my love,” said the King. “I have a wish lying by, which I’ve never had occasion to use. My fairy godmother gave it me for a wedding present, but since then I’ve had nothing to wish for!”

“Thank you, dear,” said the Queen, smiling through her tears.

“I’ll keep the wish till baby grows up,” the King went on. “And then I’ll give it to her, and if she likes to wish for hair she can.”

“Oh, won’t you wish for it _now_?” said the Queen, dropping mixed tears and kisses on the baby’s round, smooth head.

“No, dearest. She may want something else more when she grows up. And besides, her hair may grow by itself.”

But it never did. Princess Melisande grew up as beautiful as the sun and as good as gold, but never a hair grew on that little head of hers. The Queen sewed her little caps of green silk, and the Princess’s pink and white face looked out of these like a flower peeping out of its bud. And every day as she grew older she grew dearer, and as she grew dearer she grew better, and as she grew more good she grew more beautiful.

Now, when she was grown up the Queen said to the King—

“My love, our dear daughter is old enough to know what she wants. Let her have the wish.”

So the King wrote to his fairy godmother and sent the letter by a butterfly. He asked if he might hand on to his daughter the wish the fairy had given him for a wedding present.

“I have never had occasion to use it,” said he, “though it has always made me happy to remember that I had such a thing in the house. The wish is as good as new, and my daughter is now of an age to appreciate so valuable a present.”

To which the fairy replied by return of butterfly:—

“DEAR KING,—Pray do whatever you like with my poor
little present. I had quite forgotten it, but I am
pleased to think that you have treasured my humble
keepsake all these years.

“Your affectionate godmother,
“FORTUNA F.”

So the King unlocked his gold safe with the seven diamond-handled keys that hung at his girdle, and took out the wish and gave it to his daughter.

And Melisande said: “Father, I will wish that all your subjects should be quite happy.”

But they were that already, because the King and Queen were so good. So the wish did not go off.

So then she said: “Then I wish them all to be good.”

But they were that already, because they were happy. So again the wish hung fire.

Then the Queen said: “Dearest, for my sake, wish what I tell you.”

“Why, of course I will,” said Melisande. The Queen whispered in her ear, and Melisande nodded. Then she said, aloud—

“I wish I had golden hair a yard long, and that it would grow an inch every day, and grow twice as fast every time it was cut, and——”

“Stop,” cried the King. And the wish went off, and the next moment the Princess stood smiling at him through a shower of golden hair.

“Oh, how lovely,” said the Queen. “What a pity you interrupted her, dear; she hadn’t finished.”

“What was the end?” asked the King.

“Oh,” said Melisande, “I was only going to say, ‘and twice as thick.’”

“It’s a very good thing you didn’t,” said the King. “You’ve done about enough.” For he had a mathematical mind, and could do the sums about the grains of wheat on the chess-board, and the nails in the horse’s shoes, in his Royal head without any trouble at all.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked the Queen.

“You’ll know soon enough,” said the King. “Come, let’s be happy while we may. Give me a kiss, little Melisande, and then go to nurse and ask her to teach you how to comb your hair.”

“I know,” said Melisande, “I’ve often combed mother’s.”

“Your mother has beautiful hair,” said the King; “but I fancy you will find your own less easy to manage.”

And, indeed, it was so. The Princess’s hair began by being a yard long, and it grew an inch every night. If you know anything at all about the simplest sums you will see that in about five weeks her hair was about two yards long. This is a very inconvenient length. It trails on the floor and sweeps up all the dust, and though in palaces, of course, it is all gold-dust, still it is not nice to have it in your hair. And the Princess’s hair was growing an inch every night. When it was three yards long the Princess could not bear it any longer—it was so heavy and so hot—so she borrowed nurse’s cutting-out scissors and cut it all off, and then for a few hours she was comfortable. But the hair went on growing, and now it grew twice as fast as before; so that in thirty-six days it was as long as ever. The poor Princess cried with tiredness; when she couldn’t bear it any more she cut her hair and was comfortable for a very little time. For the hair now grew four times as fast as at first, and in eighteen days it was as long as before, and she had to have it cut. Then it grew eight inches a day, and the next time it was cut it grew sixteen inches a day, and then thirty-two inches and sixty-four inches and a hundred and twenty-eight inches a day, and so on, growing twice as fast after each cutting, till the Princess would go to bed at night with her hair clipped short, and wake up in the morning with yards and yards and yards of golden hair flowing all about the room, so that she could not move without pulling her own hair, and nurse had to come and cut the hair off before she could get out of bed.

“I wish I was bald again,” sighed poor Melisande, looking at the little green caps she used to wear, and she cried herself to sleep o’ nights between the golden billows of the golden hair. But she never let her mother see her cry, because it was the Queen’s fault, and Melisande did not want to seem to reproach her.

When first the Princess’s hair grew her mother sent locks of it to all her Royal relations, who had them set in rings and brooches. Later, the Queen was able to send enough for bracelets and girdles. But presently so much hair was cut off that they had to burn it. Then when autumn came all the crops failed; it seemed as though all the gold of harvest had gone into the Princess’s hair. And there was a famine. Then Melisande said—

“It seems a pity to waste all my hair; it does grow so very fast. Couldn’t we stuff things with it, or something, and sell them, to feed the people?”

So the King called a council of merchants, and they sent out samples of the Princess’s hair, and soon orders came pouring in; and the Princess’s hair became the staple export of that country. They stuffed pillows with it, and they stuffed beds with it. They made ropes of it for sailors to use, and curtains for hanging in Kings’ palaces. They made haircloth of it, for hermits, and other people who wished to be uncomfy. But it was so soft and silky that it only made them happy and warm, which they did not wish to be. So the hermits gave up wearing it, and, instead, mothers bought it for their little babies, and all well-born infants wore little shirts of Princess-haircloth.

And still the hair grew and grew. And the people were fed and the famine came to an end.

Then the King said: “It was all very well while the famine lasted—but now I shall write to my fairy godmother and see if something cannot be done.”

So he wrote and sent the letter by a skylark, and by return of bird came this answer—

“Why not advertise for a competent Prince? Offer the usual reward.”

So the King sent out his heralds all over the world to proclaim that any respectable Prince with proper references should marry the Princess Melisande if he could stop her hair growing.

Then from far and near came trains of Princes anxious to try their luck, and they brought all sorts of nasty things with them in bottles and round wooden boxes. The Princess tried all the remedies, but she did not like any of them, and she did not like any of the Princes, so in her heart she was rather glad that none of the nasty things in bottles and boxes made the least difference to her hair.

The Princess had to sleep in the great Throne Room now, because no other room was big enough to hold her and her hair. When she woke in the morning the long high room would be quite full of her golden hair, packed tight and thick like wool in a barn. And every night when she had had the hair cut close to her head she would sit in her green silk gown by the window and cry, and kiss the little green caps she used to wear, and wish herself bald again.

It was as she sat crying there on Midsummer Eve that she first saw Prince Florizel.

He had come to the palace that evening, but he would not appear in her presence with the dust of travel on him, and she had retired with her hair borne by twenty pages before he had bathed and changed his garments and entered the reception-room.

Now he was walking in the garden in the moonlight, and he looked up and she looked down, and for the first time Melisande, looking on a Prince, wished that he might have the power to stop her hair from growing. As for the Prince, he wished many things, and the first was granted him. For he said—

“You are Melisande?”

“And you are Florizel?”

“There are many roses round your window,” said he to her, “and none down here.”

She threw him one of three white roses she held in her hand. Then he said—

“White rose trees are strong. May I climb up to you?”

“Surely,” said the Princess.

So he climbed up to the window.

“Now,” said he, “if I can do what your father asks, will you marry me?”

“My father has promised that I shall,” said Melisande, playing with the white roses in her hand.

“Dear Princess,” said he, “your father’s promise is nothing to me. I want yours. Will you give it to me?”

“Yes,” said she, and gave him the second rose.

“I want your hand.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And your heart with it.”

“Yes,” said the Princess, and she gave him the third rose.

“And a kiss to seal the promise.”

“Yes,” said she.

“And a kiss to go with the hand.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And a kiss to bring the heart.”

“Yes,” said the Princess, and she gave him the three kisses.

“Now,” said he, when he had given them back to her, “to-night do not go to bed. Stay by your window, and I will stay down here in the garden and watch. And when your hair has grown to the filling of your room call to me, and then do as I tell you.”

“I will,” said the Princess.

So at dewy sunrise the Prince, lying on the turf beside the sun-dial, heard her voice—

“Florizel! Florizel! My hair has grown so long that it is pushing me out of the window.”

“Get out on to the window-sill,” said he, “and twist your hair three times round the great iron hook that is there.”

And she did.

Then the Prince climbed up the rose bush with his naked sword in his teeth, and he took the Princess’s hair in his hand about a yard from her head and said—

“Jump!”

The Princess jumped, and screamed, for there she was hanging from the hook by a yard and a half of her bright hair; the Prince tightened his grasp of the hair and drew his sword across it.

Then he let her down gently by her hair till her feet were on the grass, and jumped down after her.

They stayed talking in the garden till all the shadows had crept under their proper trees and the sun-dial said it was breakfast time.

Then they went in to breakfast, and all the Court crowded round to wonder and admire. For the Princess’s hair had not grown.

“How did you do it?” asked the King, shaking Florizel warmly by the hand.

“The simplest thing in the world,” said Florizel, modestly. “You have always cut the hair off the Princess. _I_ just cut the Princess off the hair.”

“Humph!” said the King, who had a logical mind. And during breakfast he more than once looked anxiously at his daughter. When they got up from breakfast the Princess rose with the rest, but she rose and rose and rose, till it seemed as though there would never be an end of it. The Princess was nine feet high.

“I feared as much,” said the King, sadly. “I wonder what will be the rate of progression. You see,” he said to poor Florizel, “when we cut the hair off _it_ grows—when we cut the Princess off _she_ grows. I wish you had happened to think of that!”

The Princess went on growing. By dinner-time she was so large that she had to have her dinner brought out into the garden because she was too large to get indoors. But she was too unhappy to be able to eat anything. And she cried so much that there was quite a pool in the garden, and several pages were nearly drowned. So she remembered her “Alice in Wonderland,” and stopped crying at once. But she did not stop growing. She grew bigger and bigger and bigger, till she had to go outside the palace gardens and sit on the common, and even that was too small to hold her comfortably, for every hour she grew twice as much as she had done the hour before. And nobody knew what to do, nor where the Princess was to sleep. Fortunately, her clothes had grown with her, or she would have been very cold indeed, and now she sat on the common in her green gown, embroidered with gold, looking like a great hill covered with gorse in flower.

You cannot possibly imagine how large the Princess was growing, and her mother stood wringing her hands on the castle tower, and the Prince Florizel looked on broken-hearted to see his Princess snatched from his arms and turned into a lady as big as a mountain.

The King did not weep or look on. He sat down at once and wrote to his fairy godmother, asking her advice. He sent a weasel with the letter, and by return of weasel he got his own letter back again, marked “Gone away. Left no address.”

It was now, when the kingdom was plunged into gloom, that a neighbouring King took it into his head to send an invading army against the island where Melisande lived. They came in ships and they landed in great numbers, and Melisande looking down from her height saw alien soldiers marching on the sacred soil of her country.

“I don’t mind so much now,” said she, “if I can really be of some use this size.”

And she picked up the army of the enemy in handfuls and double-handfuls, and put them back into their ships, and gave a little flip to each transport ship with her finger and thumb, which sent the ships off so fast that they never stopped till they reached their own country, and when they arrived there the whole army to a man said it would rather be courtmartialled a hundred times over than go near the place again.

Meantime Melisande, sitting on the highest hill on the island, felt the land trembling and shivering under her giant feet.

“I do believe I’m getting too heavy,” she said, and jumped off the island into the sea, which was just up to her ankles. Just then a great fleet of warships and gunboats and torpedo boats came in sight, on their way to attack the island.

Melisande could easily have sunk them all with one kick, but she did not like to do this because it might have drowned the sailors, and besides, it might have swamped the island.

So she simply stooped and picked the island as you would pick a mushroom—for, of course, all islands are supported by a stalk underneath—and carried it away to another part of the world. So that when the warships got to where the island was marked on the map they found nothing but sea, and a very rough sea it was, because the Princess had churned it all up with her ankles as she walked away through it with the island.

When Melisande reached a suitable place, very sunny and warm, and with no sharks in the water, she set down the island; and the people made it fast with anchors, and then every one went to bed, thanking the kind fate which had sent them so great a Princess to help them in their need, and calling her the saviour of her country and the bulwark of the nation.

But it is poor work being the nation’s bulwark and your country’s saviour when you are miles high, and have no one to talk to, and when all you want is to be your humble right size again and to marry your sweetheart. And when it was dark the Princess came close to the island, and looked down, from far up, at her palace and her tower and cried, and cried, and cried. It does not matter how much you cry into the sea, it hardly makes any difference, however large you may be. Then when everything was quite dark the Princess looked up at the stars.

“I wonder how soon I shall be big enough to knock my head against them,” said she.

And as she stood star-gazing she heard a whisper right in her ear. A very little whisper, but quite plain.

“Cut off your hair!” it said.

Now, everything the Princess was wearing had grown big along with her, so that now there dangled from her golden girdle a pair of scissors as big as the Malay Peninsula, together with a pin-cushion the size of the Isle of Wight, and a yard measure that would have gone round Australia.

And when she heard the little, little voice, she knew it, small as it was, for the dear voice of Prince Florizel, and she whipped out the scissors from her gold case and snip, snip, snipped all her hair off, and it fell into the sea. The coral insects got hold of it at once and set to work on it, and now they have made it into the biggest coral reef in the world; but that has nothing to do with the story.

Then the voice said, “Get close to the island,” and the Princess did, but she could not get very close because she was so large, and she looked up again at the stars and they seemed to be much farther off.

Then the voice said, “Be ready to swim,” and she felt something climb out of her ear and clamber down her arm. The stars got farther and farther away, and next moment the Princess found herself swimming in the sea, and Prince Florizel swimming beside her.

“I crept on to your hand when you were carrying the island,” he explained, when their feet touched the sand and they walked in through the shallow water, “and I got into your ear with an ear-trumpet. You never noticed me because you were so great then.”

“Oh, my dear Prince,” cried Melisande, falling into his arms, “you have saved me. I am my proper size again.”

So they went home and told the King and Queen. Both were very, very happy, but the King rubbed his chin with his hand, and said—

“You’ve certainly had some fun for your money, young man, but don’t you see that we’re just where we were before? Why, the child’s hair is growing already.”

And indeed it was.

Then once more the King sent a letter to his godmother. He sent it by a flying-fish, and by return of fish come the answer—

“Just back from my holidays. Sorry for your troubles. Why not try scales?”

And on this message the whole Court pondered for weeks.

But the Prince caused a pair of gold scales to be made, and hung them up in the palace gardens under a big oak tree. And one morning he said to the Princess—

“My darling Melisande, I must really speak seriously to you. We are getting on in life. I am nearly twenty: it is time that we thought of being settled. Will you trust me entirely and get into one of those gold scales?”

So he took her down into the garden, and helped her into the scale, and she curled up in it in her green and gold gown, like a little grass mound with buttercups on it.

“And what is going into the other scale?” asked Melisande.

“Your hair,” said Florizel. “You see, when your hair is cut off you it grows, and when you are cut off your hair you grow—oh, my heart’s delight, I can never forget how you grew, never! But if, when your hair is no more than you, and you are no more than your hair, I snip the scissors between you and it, then neither you nor your hair can possibly decide which ought to go on growing.”

“Suppose _both_ did,” said the poor Princess, humbly.

“Impossible,” said the Prince, with a shudder; “there are limits even to Malevola’s malevolence. And, besides, Fortuna said ‘Scales.’ Will you try it?”

“I will do whatever you wish,” said the poor Princess, “but let me kiss my father and mother once, and Nurse, and you, too, my dear, in case I grow large again and can kiss nobody any more.”

So they came one by one and kissed the Princess.

Then the nurse cut off the Princess’s hair, and at once it began to grow at a frightful rate.

The King and Queen and nurse busily packed it, as it grew, into the other scale, and gradually the scale went down a little. The Prince stood waiting between the scales with his drawn sword, and just before the two were equal he struck. But during the time his sword took to flash through the air the Princess’s hair grew a yard or two, so that at the instant when he struck the balance was true.

“You are a young man of sound judgment,” said the King, embracing him, while the Queen and the nurse ran to help the Princess out of the gold scale.

The scale full of golden hair bumped down on to the ground as the Princess stepped out of the other one, and stood there before those who loved her, laughing and crying with happiness, because she remained her proper size, and her hair was not growing any more.

She kissed her Prince a hundred times, and the very next day they were married. Every one remarked on the beauty of the bride, and it was noticed that her hair was quite short—only five feet five and a quarter inches long—just down to her pretty ankles. Because the scales had been ten feet ten and a half inches apart, and the Prince, having a straight eye, had cut the golden hair exactly in the middle!

_FORTUNATUS REX & CO._

THERE was once a lady who found herself in middle life with but a slight income. Knowing herself to be insufficiently educated to be able to practise any other trade or calling, she of course decided, without hesitation, to enter the profession of teaching. She opened a very select Boarding School for Young Ladies. The highest references were given and required. And in order to keep her school as select as possible, Miss Fitzroy Robinson had a brass plate fastened on to the door, with an inscription in small polite lettering. (You have, of course, heard of the “polite letters.” Well, it was with these that Miss Fitzroy Robinson’s door-plate was engraved.)

“SELECT BOARDING ESTABLISHMENT FOR THE
DAUGHTERS OF RESPECTABLE MONARCHS.”

A great many kings who were not at all respectable would have given their royal ears to be allowed to send their daughters to this school, but Miss Fitzroy Robinson was very firm about references, and the consequence was that all the really high-class kings were only too pleased to be permitted to pay ten thousand pounds a year for their daughters’ education. And so Miss Fitzroy Robinson was able to lay aside a few pounds as a provision for her old age. And all the money she saved was invested in land.

Only one monarch refused to send his daughter to Miss Fitzroy Robinson, on the ground that so cheap a school could not be a really select one, and it was found out afterwards that his references were not at all satisfactory.

There were only six boarders, and of course the best masters were engaged to teach the royal pupils everything which their parents wished them to learn, and as the girls were never asked to do lessons except when they felt quite inclined, they all said it was the nicest school in the world, and cried at the very thought of being taken away. Thus it happened that the six pupils were quite grown up and were just becoming parlour boarders when events began to occur. Princess Daisy, the daughter of King Fortunatus, the ruling sovereign, was the only little girl in the school.

Now it was when she had been at school about a year, that a ring came at the front door-bell, and the maid-servant came to the schoolroom with a visiting card held in the corner of her apron—for her hands were wet because it was washing-day.

“A gentleman to see you, Miss,” she said; and Miss Fitzroy Robinson was quite fluttered because she thought it might be a respectable monarch, with a daughter who wanted teaching.

But when she looked at the card she left off fluttering, and said, “Dear me!” under her breath, because she was very genteel. If she had been vulgar like some of us she would have said “Bother!” and if she had been more vulgar than, I hope, any of us are, she might have said “Drat the man!” The card was large and shiny and had gold letters on it. Miss Fitzroy Robinson read:—

Chevalier Doloro De Lara
Professor of Magic (white)
and the Black Art.
Pupils instructed at their own residences.
No extras.
Special terms for Schools. Evening Parties
attended.

Miss Fitzroy Robinson laid down her book—she never taught without a book—smoothed her yellow cap and her grey curls and went into the front parlour to see her visitor. He bowed low at sight of her. He was very tall and hungry-looking, with black eyes, and an indescribable mouth.