Chapter III: Part 3

The Princess laughed merrily. "I do not want to stand here at all," she explained; "but unless you move your tail a little on one side, I really cannot get past."

"If you do get past," growled the sea-serpent, "you will fall into the Witch's hands."

"That is exactly where I want to fall!" cried Princess Gentianella; "only you must move your tail a little bit more than that, or else I am afraid I shall step on it."

It was such a novelty for the sea-serpent to find some one who was not frightened of him, that he had not the heart to tell her that he was just going to eat her up. So he moved his tail out of the way, and Princess Gentianella blew a kiss to him from the tips of her little pink fingers and ran on as before.

The next person she met was an old woman, who was picking thistles in a field.

"I wonder why you are doing that!" said the Princess, opening her big blue eyes.

"I am making an experiment, to see if I can find any one with so brave a heart that the thistles will not be able to hurt it," answered the old woman, mysteriously.

"But does it not scratch your fingers to gather those large prickly thistles?" asked the little Princess.

"Perhaps it does," the old woman said shortly; "but who do you suppose is going to gather them for me?"

She seemed rather cross, but the Princess supposed it was because she had pricked her fingers so much.

"Well, I am in a most tremendous hurry, but I think I can stop and help you," she answered; and down she dropped on her knees and began to pick thistles as fast as she could. And when the thistles saw what soft pink fingers were going to take hold of them, they at once bent back all their prickles and allowed the Princess to gather as many as she pleased without giving her so much as a scratch. When she had filled the old woman's apron for her, she began to run off at full speed, to make up for lost time. But the old woman called her back.

"Stop!" she cried. "Where are you going?"

"I am going to find the Witch's daughter," answered Princess Gentianella, looking back impatiently.

"Oh, indeed!" said the old woman. "May I ask what you want with her?"

"I want to tell her not to marry Prince Amaryllis, because he is not her Prince but somebody else's Prince," said Princess Gentianella.

"Oh, indeed!" said the old woman again. "And whose Prince may he be, then?"

"He is my Prince, of course!" answered the little Princess, laughing happily; and then away she ran across the field, and into the wood that lay beyond.

In the wood, under a hazel-tree, sat a tall and beautiful girl, weeping bitterly.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Princess Gentianella, mournfully. "How dreadfully sorry I am!"

"Why?" asked the girl, looking up at her.

"Because you are crying, to be sure," answered the Princess. "Will you tell me why you are so sad?"

"My mother, who is always making experiments, wants me to marry a Prince I have never seen, just to see how we should like it," explained the girl. "And all the while, I am somebody else's Princess!"

"That is very strange," remarked Princess Gentianella. "Now _I_ am sad because my Prince has got to marry Anemone, the Witch's beautiful daughter, and I am trying to find her to tell her that he is really my Prince. Do you think she will want to marry him, when she hears that he is somebody else's Prince?"

The beautiful girl suddenly sprang to her feet and began to laugh joyfully. "I am sure she will not," she answered, "for _I_ am Anemone, the Witch's daughter. So nobody will have to marry anybody's Prince except her own, and the witch will not be able to make experiments any more!"

"That is settled, then," said the little Princess, contentedly. "Now let us go and find our Princes. But supposing that I find your Prince first, how shall I know that he _is_ your Prince?"

"His name is Hyacinth," answered the Witch's daughter.

"How delightful!" cried Princess Gentianella, clapping her hands. "Then I shall find my youngest brother as well as my Prince. But do you know where they are?"

Anemone, the Witch's daughter, began to look a little doubtful. "I have just remembered," she confessed, "that I sent Hyacinth to kill your Prince, only a few minutes before you came along. Do not be anxious, however," she added hastily, "for perhaps he will not be able to find him."

The Princess Gentianella was not at all anxious. "Nobody could possibly be strong enough to kill my Prince," she observed; "and as for Hyacinth, he will be quite safe, for Prince Amaryllis is much too nice to hurt any one!"

She proved to be right, for in another minute they saw the two Princes coming towards them arm in arm. And if this should seem extraordinary, it must be remembered that it all took place in an enchanted wood, where a witch had been making experiments for hundreds and hundreds of years.

"There was no necessity to kill him, dearest," cried Prince Hyacinth, "for he is somebody else's Prince."

He held out his arms as he spoke, and into them ran Anemone, the Witch's daughter, and of course there is no need to tell into whose arms the little Princess ran. After that, there was nothing to be heard in the wood except kissing, until the Witch suddenly stepped on the scenes.

"Cobwebs and broomsticks! What is the meaning of this?" she cried furiously.

Three of them turned round and faced her in an extremely nervous manner; for, after all, a witch is a witch, and they knew fast enough that she could turn them into any shape she pleased. The Princess Gentianella did not seem nervous, however.

"Why, you are the nice old lady I met in the field," she exclaimed.

"I believe I am," said the Witch, who had never been called a nice old lady in her life before, and was not quite sure how to take it.

"I have found my Prince, you see," continued the little Princess, smiling away as happily as possible.

"So it seems," said the Witch. She was afraid to say more than that, in case the Princess should find out who she was, and she thought she would like to be a nice old lady a little longer first.

"And have you found any one yet who has so brave a heart that the thistles cannot hurt it?" asked Princess Gentianella.

"I think I have," said the Witch.

"Then we have all found what we want," smiled Princess Gentianella, "and the Witch cannot surely be so unkind as to refuse to disenchant the kingdom, just because her daughter doesn't want to marry my Prince! Do you think she can?"

The Witch dropped her thistles and held out her hands to the eager Princess. "My dear little girl," she said, "the kingdom was disenchanted the moment you came into it. As for the Witch, there is no Witch any longer, for she retired into private life as a nice old lady, just ten minutes ago. Now, as you all seem to have sorted yourselves the right way, the best thing you can do is to go off home as fast as you can."

No doubt that is where Anemone must have gone with her Prince, for when the little Princess looked round and found herself standing once more in her own garden, there was no one with her except Prince Amaryllis.

"_Now_ may I come and play in your garden?" asked Princess Gentianella, softly.

The Prince still shook his head. "I have a much better idea than that," he said; "we will pull down the wall and make it all into one garden."

The Tears of Princess Prunella

There is no doubt that the Princess Prunella would have been the most charming little girl on either side of the sun, if she had not been so exceedingly cross and discontented. She was as pretty as any one could wish to see, and as accomplished as all the gifts of Fairyland could make her; and she had every bit of happiness that the love of her parents and the wit of her fairy godmother could put in her way. And yet she grumbled and grumbled and grumbled!

"Can you not try to be happy, just for five minutes?" asked the Queen, in despair.

"How can you expect me to be happy, even for five minutes, when every five minutes is exactly like the last five minutes?" sighed the little Princess.

"It is tea-time, your Highness," said the head nurse, coaxingly, "and there are pink sugar cakes for tea!"

"There were pink sugar cakes yesterday," pouted the Princess. "There are always pink sugar cakes unless there are white sugar cakes, and I am equally tired of them both. Can you not tell me something new?"

"Let her go without her tea," said the King, who was rather tired of having such a cross little daughter. But the Queen only smiled.

"The child wants a change," she remarked. "It must be very dull to play alone all day."

"Dull!" exclaimed the King. "Why should it be dull? Has not her godmother given her such wonderful toys that they can play with her as well as be played with?" This was quite true, for the very ball that the Princess threw to the other end of the nursery could catch itself and throw itself back to her; and it is not every ball that can do that. "What more can the child want?" demanded the King, crossly.

The Queen, however, thought there might be something more. "We must find her a playfellow," she said wisely.

"Stuff and nonsense!" protested the King. "Why should we bring any more crying children into the palace? However, you must do as you like, I suppose."

The King always told the Queen to do as she liked when he was tired of the conversation; so the Queen smiled again and issued a proclamation at once, to tell the whole world that the Princess Prunella wanted some one to play with, and would be ready to choose a playfellow that day week, at twelve o'clock in the morning. Now, it is not often that one gets a chance of playing with a King's daughter, so it is no wonder that, when the Princess followed her royal parents into the great hall on the appointed day, she found it filled from end to end with all the little princes and princesses and all the little counts and countesses and all the little dukes and duchesses that the surrounding kingdoms could produce.

"I never had a more excellent idea," said the Queen, as she seated herself on the throne and looked down at the crowd of children. "Prunella has talked of nothing else for a whole week, and she has not been heard to grumble once."

"That's all very well," observed the King, a little uneasily; "but it is quite clear that she cannot play with them all, and who knows that so much disappointment will not lead to a war?"

The Queen did not answer but turned to her little daughter, who stood by her side. "Do not be in a hurry," she said to her. "So many faces are confusing at first, and you might regret it afterwards if you made a mistake."

But Princess Prunella showed no signs of being in a hurry. She just glanced over the sea of faces that were turned towards her, and then looked speechlessly at her mother. The smiles had all gone from her face, and the big blue eyes were filled with tears.

"Why, they are all exactly alike!" she said piteously. "I cannot tell one from another." And to the astonishment of every one in the room, she dropped down on the steps of the throne and began to cry.

"Dear, dear! What is to be done?" exclaimed the Queen, in much alarm. "It will look so very bad if all the children have to be sent home again!"

"It will certainly lead to a war," was all the King said; and then they both looked helplessly at their sobbing little daughter. As for all the children, they were so surprised at hearing how much alike they were that they said nothing at all; and it is difficult to tell what would have been the end of the matter, if the Princess had not suddenly jumped to her feet again and pointed towards the door.

"There is the Prince I should like to play with," she exclaimed. "_He_ is not like the others, for he has a wonderful look on his face."

Everybody looked round at the doorway; and, sure enough, there stood a boy whom no one had noticed before. "Come here, Prince," commanded the Princess, raising her voice haughtily; "you may kiss my hand if you like."

But the boy drew back with a bewildered air and shook his head. Princess Prunella stamped her foot angrily.

"How dare you hesitate when I tell you to come here?" she cried. At this, however, the strange boy turned and hastened out of the room altogether; and a loud murmur of astonishment rose from the children.

The King's daughter had never been disobeyed in her life before, and for a moment she was too astonished to speak.

"Who is he? What is his name?" she demanded at last.

There was a pause, broken presently by the shrill voice of one of the pages. "Please, your Highness, it is only deaf Robert, the minstrel's son," he said.

"Deaf!" repeated the Princess. "What is that?"

"It means that he cannot hear anything, little daughter," explained the Queen; "so, you see, he would not do for a playfellow at all. Besides, he is not even a Prince. Can you not choose one of these others instead?"

The Princess, however, could do nothing of the kind. "All these are alike," she said again; "but the minstrel's son has a wonderful look on his face, and I will have no one else for a playfellow!"

So all the children went sadly back to their homes, and wondered why they were so much alike; and the whole court was made uncomfortable once more by the sulkiness of Princess Prunella.

"Your Highness's best wax doll has not been out for two whole days," suggested the head nurse.

The Princess snatched the doll from her hands and threw it on the floor.

"If you will not let me play with a boy who is deaf, how can you expect me to play with a _doll_?" she asked; and although, no doubt, there was much in what she said, it was hardly the way in which to speak to the head nurse. Indeed, there would have been a serious disturbance in the royal nursery the very next minute, if the Princess's cream-coloured pony had not suddenly trotted round from the stable of its own accord, and put it into her head to go for a ride.

Now, the Princess's pony was of course a fairy pony; so when he ran away with her in the forest, that day, it was not to be supposed that he would run away with her for nothing. He took her, in fact, for a real fairy ride, all through a fairy forest, that began by being quite a baby forest and then grew and grew, the deeper she went into it, until it ended in being quite a grown-up forest. And the pony never stopped running away until he reached a dear little grey house, that was set in the brightest of flower gardens, right in the middle of the forest.

The Princess slipped off his back and pushed open the little gate and walked into the flower garden. Any one else might have been surprised to find deaf Robert sitting there, in the middle of the trim green lawn, but after a fairy ride one is never surprised at anything; so the Princess's heart just gave one big jump for joy, and she ran straight up to him and took his hand.

"Poor deaf boy! poor deaf boy!" she said softly. Certainly she was not behaving like a King's daughter, for she ought to have been extremely angry with him for disobeying her in the morning, instead of which she spoke as gently to him as any ordinary little girl might have done. But then, as he could not hear what she said to him, what was the use of speaking like a princess?

"Poor deaf boy!" she repeated, bending over him; "no wonder you look so dull and unhappy!"

It was the first time in her life that she had forgotten she was a princess, and she was quite surprised at the gentleness of her own voice. She was still more surprised when the deaf boy rose to his feet and bowed very low and answered her.

"I was only unhappy, Princess, because I could not hear what you said to me this morning," he explained.

"Oh!" cried the Princess. "You _can_ hear me now!"

"Ah, yes," said deaf Robert; "I can hear you now, because you speak so kindly. It is only when people are angry and speak roughly that I cannot hear them. That is why they say I am deaf."

"Have you always been deaf?" asked the Princess, wonderingly.

"Ever since the wymps came to my christening," answered the minstrel's son. "For when they asked my father what gift he would choose for me, he chose that I should be deaf to every sound that was not beautiful."

"So that is why you have such a wonderful look on your face," said Princess Prunella. "I wish the wymps went to everybody's christening!"

Deaf Robert shook his head. "If they had not come to mine," he remarked, "I should have been able to hear what you said to me this morning."

"Never mind!" said the Princess. "Come back to the palace with me now; I will never speak crossly to you again, and then you will always be able to hear what I say."

"No, no," answered Robert, shrinking back. "I cannot come to the town; it is so silent there, it frightens me."

"Silent?" echoed the Princess. "Surely, it is the forest that is silent!"

"Oh, no," said the minstrel's son, smiling; "the forest is full of sound. Can you not hear them all talking,--the bees and the flowers and the great pine-trees?"

Princess Prunella listened. "No," she said, shaking her head, "I can hear nothing." Then she took the deaf boy's hands and pulled him towards the gate. "Come back to the town with me," she said eagerly. "It is true that you cannot hear the other people's voices; but you will always be able to hear _me_, and that is ever so much more important!"

So the minstrel's son went back to the palace with Princess Prunella; and when the King and Queen saw how happy their little daughter was at last, they said nothing more about deaf Robert not being a prince, but got over the difficulty by making him a Marquis on the spot and giving him the appointment of Playfellow-in-chief to her Royal Highness. A magnificent banquet was given to celebrate this important event, at which several speeches were made by the King and several tunes were played by the band; but as the speeches were exceedingly pompous and the tunes were exceedingly noisy, the new Marquis, for whom they were intended, heard neither one nor the other. However, he heard every word that the little Princess whispered in his ear, and perhaps that was all that he wished to hear.

Never had life passed so peacefully at the palace as in the days that followed. The Princess was never heard to utter an angry word, and she went about with a contented look on her face that cheered the hearts of all who knew her. It was indeed a happy day for the court when the minstrel's son came to play with the King's daughter, and every one rejoiced that the King and the Queen had been wise enough to let their little daughter have her own way. But all this while no one thought of the minstrel's son.

Now, anybody might suppose that a minstrel's son, who suddenly found himself made into a Marquis and Playfellow-in-chief to a Princess, would be the happiest boy in the world. And yet, although he grew fonder every day of his little playfellow, deaf Robert was the saddest person in the whole court. He grew more and more silent as the days went on, until at last even the Princess noticed that he was changed.

"The wonderful look has gone from your face," she said to him. "Can it be that you do not feel happy at court?"

Then the boy-Marquis told her the truth. "I am unhappy because I cannot hear the sounds of the town," he said. "Will not your father go and live in the forest for a change, so that we can play there together, instead of in this horrible, silent place?"

"But I don't want to go and play in the forest," objected the Princess. "There are no people in the forest; and I should forget I was a person myself, if I had nothing to talk to but the flowers and the trees."

For the first time since they had played together, deaf Robert remembered that he was nearly two years older than the little Princess; and he smiled in a superior manner. "That is only because you hear all the wrong things," he said. "If you could once hear the sounds of the forest, you would never want to come back to the town."

The Princess turned red with anger, and she opened her mouth to give the minstrel's son a thorough good scolding, which would certainly have surprised him had he been able to hear it. But she remembered in time that he would not be able to hear it, so she sighed impatiently and answered him as softly as she could.

"You are quite mistaken," she said, putting her chin in the air. "If you were a real boy you would understand." And with that she turned and left him. It was certainly annoying not to be able to lose her temper whenever she felt inclined, but there was nothing to prevent her from remembering that she was a princess.

That afternoon, the Princess pricked her finger, and the minstrel's son found out that what she had said was quite true, and he was not a real boy at all. For, of course, the Princess did what any other little girl of twelve years old would have done, and burst into tears; while the minstrel's son, who was quite unable to hear her sobs, only stared at her solemnly, and wondered why her pretty round face had suddenly twisted itself into such a strange expression.

"What are you doing, Prunella?" he asked her gravely.

"Doing!" wept the Princess. "Why, I am crying, of course! That is what you would be doing if you had pricked your finger as badly as I have." She held out her small white finger as she spoke, but the minstrel's son only stared at her as solemnly as before.

"Crying? What is that?" he asked. "And why should you do anything so useless? Surely, it would be better to fetch a doctor or a piece of sticking-plaster."

Princess Prunella came to the end of her patience. It had been bad enough to exist for six whole weeks without being allowed to lose her temper once, but now that she found she could not even cry with any pleasure, she felt it was more than any little girl of twelve years old could be expected to bear.

"It isn't sticking-plaster that I want," she said miserably. "When people cry, they want to be comforted, of course."

"Do they?" said deaf Robert, looking perplexed. "But if I cannot hear you cry, how am I to comfort you?"

The Princess was far too cross to be reasonable, though she managed to remember that it was no use letting her crossness appear in her voice. "That's just it!" she sobbed. "You ought to be able to hear me cry, and then you would be a real boy!"

And the Princess pitied herself so much for being forced to play with some one who was not real, that she buried her face in her hands and wept more than ever. She half hoped, even then, that deaf Robert would come and kiss her and make friends again, as any nice boy would have done at once; but deaf Robert did nothing of the kind, and when she at last took her hands from her eyes, her playfellow was gone.

Truly, the forest had never looked so beautiful as on that day when the minstrel's son hastened through it on his way to his old home. The flowers looked their best, and the birds sang their merriest, and the trees bent their greenest boughs, to give him a welcome; but the boy with the wonderful look on his face, who had lived among them for so long, never paused so much as to glance at them, and they only had time to notice, as he passed them by, that the wonderful look was no longer there. On he hurried until he came to the little grey house, set in its garden of bright-coloured flowers; and he pushed open the gate and walked in, just as his Princess had done six weeks ago.

The minstrel was at home, this time, and he was sitting on the doorstep in the sunshine. He had just composed a new song, and that always made him extremely happy; but he sighed a little when he saw his son come in at the gate, for he, too, had no difficulty in seeing that the wonderful look had gone from the boy's face.

"What is the matter, my son?" he asked anxiously.

Deaf Robert wasted no time in greeting him. "Father," he cried, "why did you ask the wymps to my christening?"

"That is easily answered," said the minstrel, soothingly. "It was because I wished you to hear nothing but beautiful sounds all your life."

"But what sounds do you call beautiful?" demanded his son.

The minstrel smiled. "Can you not hear my music?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," said deaf Robert; "but what else?"

It had never struck the minstrel that there need be anything else, and he hesitated a little. "Well," he said at last, "can you not hear the sounds of the forest?"

Deaf Robert looked up at the pine-trees overhead and down to the flowers at his feet. "I used to be able to," he said sadly, "but even the forest has grown silent now." Then he clenched his fists and looked imploringly at his father. "Must I live to the end of my days without hearing any of the things that other boys hear?" he cried.

"You are a little unreasonable, my son," said the minstrel. "Are not the beautiful sounds of life enough for you?"

"Enough?" said deaf Robert. "I want much, much more than that, father. Why, I want to hear the Princess cry!"

"That is nonsense!" exclaimed the minstrel. "Tears make a most unpleasant sound, and you would be extremely disappointed if you were to hear the Princess cry."

The minstrel's son drew himself up proudly. "You do not understand; you are not real either," he said. "The tears of _my_ Princess make the sweetest sound in the world, and I am not going to rest until I learn how to hear it." Then he turned and walked through the gate and out into the forest once more.

The minstrel looked after him and sighed. "It was the best gift I could think of," he murmured; "it was the one I would have chosen for myself. It is true," he added thoughtfully, "that I never wanted to play with a King's daughter."

The minstrel's son wandered aimlessly through the forest,--the forest that he had once liked so well because it was all his, and that he only liked now because he had found his little Princess in it; and there he might have been wandering still, if he had not suddenly met a wymp. This was not really surprising in that particular forest, for it was just the kind of forest in which any boy of fourteen might at any minute meet a wymp; but for all that, deaf Robert was just a little bit startled when the wymp suddenly dropped in his path from the tree above and nodded at him.

"Hullo!" said the wymp. "What is the matter with you?"

"I am very unhappy, because I am not a real boy," explained deaf Robert.

"Dear me! How is that?" asked the wymp, pretending to be surprised.

"Well, _you_ ought to know," answered deaf Robert. "It is all because the wymps came to my christening."

"Nothing of the sort!" cried the wymp, indignantly. "It is all because your father insisted on knowing better than we did, and we let him have his own way. If the wymps had not been at your christening, you would not even _want_ to be a real boy. So you cannot hear the Princess cry, eh? That's a good wympish joke, that is!" And the wymp stood on his head and choked with laughter.

"It is all very well for you to laugh," complained the minstrel's son. "You don't know how unpleasant it is to be a boy without being a real boy."

The wymp came down on his toes again and stopped laughing. "Then why don't you go and learn to be a real boy?" he asked in surprise.

"How can I find out the way?" asked deaf Robert.

"You ridiculous boy!" exclaimed the wymp. "Why, the first person you meet will be able to tell you that!"

Deaf Robert had no time to thank him for his information, for the wymp began turning somersaults the moment he had finished speaking, and he went on turning them until he turned into nothing at all, and there was no more wymp to be seen. Then the minstrel's son walked on through the forest; and for three days and three nights he met no one at all, but on the morning of the fourth day he came to the very edge of the forest, and there he saw an old woman sitting by the side of a blackberry bush.

"Hurrah!" cried deaf Robert, waving his cap. "Do you know that you are the first person I have met, and that you are going to tell me how to become a real boy?"

"I will tell you at once," said the old woman, smiling, "for you come straight to the point and do not beat about the bush. This is what you must do, then:--something brave and something kind and something foolish and something wise. If you are not a real boy after that, it will be your own fault!" Then she walked round the blackberry bush and disappeared; and although deaf Robert forgot what she had just said about him and beat about that bush in good earnest, he never saw any more of her.

Then the minstrel's son walked straight on in search of a brave deed to do; and this did not take him long, for there are always plenty of brave deeds waiting to be done by some one. So, long before the sun was above his head that day, he came to a castle where a beautiful Princess was being kept captive by a cruel old giant,--all because he was cruel, and for no other reason at all. And when deaf Robert saw the Princess weeping behind the bars of her prison window, he was reminded of his own little Princess whom he had left weeping on the nursery floor; and that made him call on the giant instantly to come out and be killed. The giant laughed a great laugh and came out into the courtyard, not to be killed, but to kill the minstrel's son instead; but before he had time to do that, the minstrel's son had managed to kill _him_, and there was an end of the cruel old giant.

"That is the bravest deed I have ever seen done!" cried the Princess, when he fetched her out of her dungeon.

"Brave deeds are easily done, then," said deaf Robert; but he was glad enough, all the same, to hear that he had done the first part of his task. The next thing he did was to take the beautiful Princess back to her own country; and that seemed to him a great waste of time, for he could not certainly do his kind deed so long as he had the Princess on his hands. But when they reached her country and the Princess told her father how deaf Robert had come out of his way to bring her home, the old King was pleased, and asked him what reward he would like for his trouble. "For," he said, "you have done the kindest deed any one could possibly think of."

"No reward for me!" laughed deaf Robert; "for there is my kind deed done without my knowing it!" And off he set once more on his travels.

After that, the minstrel's son wandered about for a great many days; for neither a wise nor a foolish deed could he find to do. Sometimes, when he thought he had been wise, the people told him he was cruel, and drove him out of their country; and sometimes, when he was sure he had been foolish, they only praised him for his kindness. He grew tired and footsore, and his clothes became old and ragged, and he almost forgot that he had once been a Marquis and Playfellow-in-chief to a princess. But he never forgot how the little Princess Prunella had looked, as she sat on the nursery floor and wept with sobs that he was not able to hear. So two years passed away, and still he had not learned how to be a real boy.

One day, as he walked along a country road, he came upon a girl driving cows.

"Why are you looking so sad?" she asked him.

"Because I left my Princess crying in her nursery two years ago, and I have been away from her ever since," answered the boy, simply.

The girl burst out laughing. "Well," she exclaimed, "that was a foolish thing to do!"

"Foolish?" shouted deaf Robert. "Did you say _foolish_?"

"To be sure I did," laughed the girl. "Could anything be more foolish than to keep away from some one whom you want to be with?"

"Then I will go back to her this very instant," declared the minstrel's son.

"And that would be the wisest thing you could do," answered the girl; and she immediately disappeared, cows and all, which just shows that she must have been a wymp all the while.

"Well," said deaf Robert, "there are my wise and my foolish deeds done together, and now I am a real boy!"

Then off he set homewards as fast as he could go; and although it had taken him two years to come away from home, it only took him two hours to get back again, so it is clear that the wymps must have had a hand in that, too. And just about tea-time he stood outside the nursery door in the palace of his own little Princess.

It is well to remember that the wymps had come to the christening of the minstrel's son; otherwise it might seem a little wonderful that the Princess Prunella should have pricked her finger again, on the very day that her Playfellow-in-chief came back to her. Anyhow, that is what had happened; and as the minstrel's son stood outside the door and listened, he heard the softest and the sweetest and the prettiest sound he had ever heard in his life.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "At last I can hear the Princess cry!" And he burst open the door and ran into the room, all in his rags and his tatters, and knelt down to comfort the King's daughter.

"Only look at my finger," wept Princess Prunella, as she showed him her little hand. Truly, it was impossible to tell which of her small white fingers the Princess had pricked, but as the minstrel's son kissed every one of them in turn, it is clear that he must have healed the right one; and that, of course, was why the Princess stopped crying at once.

Then she looked at her old playfellow and laughed for joy to see him there again. "The wonderful look has come back into your face," she said, "but it is ever so much more wonderful than before!"

"Dear little playfellow," whispered the minstrel's son, "I can hear the forest sounds again, too; but you were right all the time, and the sounds of the town are much more charming than the sounds of the forest."

"Oh, no," declared the Princess. "There you are quite mistaken, for the sounds of the forest are more beautiful by far."

And it is a fact that they have been disputing the point ever since.

The Palace on the Floor

Prince Picotee had just built a fairy palace on the nursery floor, and he sat back on his heels and looked at it with pride. Surely, no one had ever built so fine a palace before in the space of thirteen minutes and a half! Not only were there two lofty towers that soared proudly upwards until they were actually as tall as the Prince himself, but there was a great arched doorway as well, with a flight of steps leading down from it away under the nursery table; and there was even a drawbridge, made of a single big brick and suspended by a piece of string. All this, however, might be found in anybody's palace; what made the Prince's palace different from every one else's was just the way the windows were built. They were not built in rows, like ordinary windows, so that any one could guess how dull and square the rooms were inside; but they appeared here and there as if by accident, sometimes at a corner, sometimes on the top of another window, sometimes under the battlements, wherever, in fact, the little builder-Prince had felt inclined to put a window; and the most wonderful thing of all was that, however much he tried to peep through them, he could not possibly see what the rooms were like beyond. So the palace he had built himself was full of beautiful halls and rooms and passages that no one would ever be able to see.

"No doubt," exclaimed Prince Picotee, "this is the most wonderful palace that ever was built!"

Just then Dimples, the Prime Minister's little daughter, ran into the room. "How absurd!" she cried. "Why, it isn't a real palace at all!"

"It is real enough for me," said Prince Picotee. "When I am grown up and a king, I shall have a palace exactly like this to live in."

Dimples came and sat on the floor by the Prince. "_I_ shouldn't like to live in a palace that would tumble down directly you pulled out the bottom brick," she observed, placing her fat little finger on the brick as she spoke.

The Prince seized her hand hastily. "There will be no girls in my palace," he said with dignity; "it is only girls who want to pull down other people's palaces."

Dimples put her head on one side and examined the palace afresh. "How untidy your steps are!" she remarked. "The top one is shorter than the others, and there is a join in the middle of the second one."

The Prince felt a little hurt. "It is not my fault if the bricks are not all the same length," he said. "Besides, those things do not matter. Only look at my beautiful windows!"

Dimples looked, and burst out laughing. "What funny windows!" she exclaimed. "Why, you can't see into the rooms! What is the use of having a palace when you don't know what it is like inside?"

"You don't understand," answered Prince Picotee. "Anybody can see inside an ordinary palace; this is a particular palace, you see."

Dimples did not see at all; so she changed the conversation. "What are all those soldiers doing on the table?" she asked.

"They are not on the table," explained the Prince. "They have been marching since yesterday morning, and they are on the road to my fairy palace." He then began to station his soldiers on the battlements of the two lofty towers.

"I suppose you think your wooden soldiers are real, too!" laughed the Prime Minister's daughter.

"Hush!" whispered the Prince. "If you speak so loud, they will hear you, and it would never do for them to know that you called them wooden. _Anything_ might happen to you if you made them really angry!"

"You are only talking nonsense," said Dimples, which was what she always said when she did not understand what the Prince meant. At the same time she could not help being struck by the look on the face of the soldier that Prince Picotee had just picked up. It was the captain of the little regiment; and as the Prince placed him at the post of danger on the bottom brick of all, she felt sure that she saw a flush of anger on his painted wooden cheeks and a gleam of mischief in his round black eyes. "He is only a toy soldier," said Dimples, tossing her head; but she did not say it aloud, and it is certain that she felt a little uncomfortable, all the rest of that day, about the look on the captain's face.

Now, Dimples had come to stay with the Prince for a few days, and it happened that the room in which she slept was next to the royal nursery; and right in the middle of the night--which, as every one knows, is the time for wymps and fairies to be about--she awoke suddenly with a most unpleasant start. There, by the side of her bed, stood one of the Prince's wooden soldiers, shouldering his wooden gun as though he had never done anything else for the whole of his life,--which was certainly the truth,--and holding himself just for all the world as though he were glued together. He was certainly a most military-looking soldier, and if Dimples had not been a particularly brave little girl, she might have been decidedly frightened.

"What do you want?" she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"Follow me. Prince's palace. Captain's orders," said the little soldier, in three jerks; and he turned round and marched stiffly towards the door. His tone was hard; but then, of course, his voice, like everything else about him, was made of wood. Dimples made no fuss about obeying him, for she was always ready for an adventure; so out of bed she jumped without any more ado, and followed him into the next room. It took them several minutes to get there, because the soldier walked so very slowly; but this, again, was not surprising, for people with wooden legs cannot be expected to walk as fast as ordinary folk.

When they reached the nursery, Dimples gave a cry of surprise. It was evident that the Prince's palace had sprung upwards since the afternoon, for the two towers were now far above her head, while as for the drawbridge, by the time she had crossed it and mounted the magnificent flight of steps, she found herself quite out of breath. "Perhaps it is a real palace, after all," she said doubtfully.

"Don't mutter. Bad manners. Captain's prisoner," said the soldier in three jerks, as before.

Dimples did not answer, for at that moment she stepped inside the Prince's palace and was too breathless with excitement to utter a word. It was indeed no ordinary hall in which she found herself; it was built entirely of oak beams of different lengths, so that in one place the ceiling was low and in another place it was high, in one corner there were several doors, and in another there were several windows; here an arch tottered perilously over an opening, and there a solitary pillar blocked up the whole of a doorway. It was truly a wonderful palace, as the Prince had said, but it was a little surprising at first sight. Dimples, however, had no time to think about it, for at that moment a stern voice was heard coming from below the floor of the hall.

"Bring the prisoner here!" said the voice. Dimples looked through a hole in the floor,--which was not difficult, as the floor was full of holes,--and there, on the bottom brick of all, stood the toy captain.

"Come along. Bottom brick. Captain waiting," said her guide; and with some little difficulty--for it is not easy to jump from beam to beam when one is accustomed to solid floors--she scrambled after him and arrived in front of the terrible captain.

"Oho!" said the captain, grasping his sword as tightly as he could,--which was very tight, as it happened, because his fingers were glued to it,--"who is the real person now, you or I?"

The question was a puzzling one, but Dimples did her best to answer it truthfully. "Well," she said, "I suppose you are real, though I didn't think so before; and I suppose I am real, too; but it is rather confusing, isn't it?"

"Not at all confusing," said the captain, a little rudely it must be owned. "It is quite clear that I am real, of course; but as for you--why, you are not even painted!"

"No," said Dimples, as politely as she could, "I am not painted, and I don't think I want to be painted, thank you. Why, I should never feel safe for a moment if I had a face that anybody could wash off with a sponge!"

At this the toy captain was so furious that he shook with anger from head to foot.

"Do you know," he said, "that I have only to pull out the brick on which I am standing, and the whole palace will tumble down on your head?"

"Of course I know," laughed Dimples, who was growing less frightened every minute; "but if you do, it will tumble down on your head as well as mine."

"That is true," said the toy captain, "but I am a real person and I am made of wood, so it will make no difference to me."

Dimples was obliged to own that there was something in what the captain said; and as she disliked nothing so much as being beaten in an argument, she at once pretended not to be listening.

"Oh, dear, how hungry I am!" she said, yawning.

"If you were real and not made up," said the toy captain, "you would never get hungry at all." However, he called out to a soldier, who was mounting guard on the top of a pillar just over his head, and ordered him to bring the prisoner some food. In a few minutes, Dimples found herself in front of a curious meal, served on round cardboard dishes and consisting of one red jelly, two raw mutton chops, a bunch of grapes, and a slice of salmon.

"But they won't come off the dishes, will they?" asked Dimples, who had fed her dolls for years on the very things that were now placed before her.

"Of course not," said the toy captain. "They would have been lost long ago if they had not been stuck on. What more can you want? If you were a real person, as you pretend to be, your appetite would be taken away by the mere sight of dishes like those!"

This, in fact, was what had already happened to Dimples, for there was nothing very enticing about a jelly from which she remembered sucking the paint only a week ago; while as for the other things, even her youngest and favourite doll was beginning to grow tired of their monotony. So she made no objection when the captain ordered the dishes to be removed.

"Now you have satisfied your hunger," continued the captain, "I will order you to be taken upstairs to the dungeon."

"Upstairs!" exclaimed Dimples. "What a funny place for a dungeon!"

"Funny? Not in the least!" said the captain, severely. "In a palace of this kind you must take the rooms as you find them. You will find the dungeon squeezed between the drawing-room and the kitchen, at the very top of the left-hand tower. There you will have to stop until the King comes."

"Who is the King?" asked Dimples, curiously.

Before the toy captain had time to answer, the band of the regiment struck up an inspiriting march. To be sure, there were only two wooden drummer boys and two wooden trumpeters, of whom one had lost his trumpet and was therefore obliged to blow continually through his stiffened fingers; but for all that they made quite a cheerful noise, and in the middle of it the King mounted the steps and entered the palace.

"Hurrah! The King! It is the King!" shouted the whole regiment in twenty wooden voices.

"The King!" repeated Dimples. "Why, it is the Prince!"

"Don't talk nonsense," said the captain, gruffly. "Do you suppose we would allow ourselves to be commanded by a mere Prince? This is a real King, I can tell you, though he isn't made of wood, more's the pity!"

And when Dimples saw the dignified way in which the little King walked into the palace, she could not help agreeing that he was a very real King. Indeed, she found it difficult to believe that he was nothing but her playfellow, the Prince Picotee, for never before had she seen him look so happy and so triumphant. There was no doubt that the little King had found his kingdom; and Dimples, remembering that she was really his prisoner, began to wish that she had not teased him so much about his toy palace and his toy soldiers. But the King did not even see her; he walked straight into the great hall and then stood still and drew a long breath of satisfaction.

"It is the most wonderful palace that ever was built," he murmured to himself; "it is much, much more wonderful than I thought."

Then his eyes fell upon Dimples, who was trying to hide behind the stiff figure of the toy captain, on the bottom brick of all.

"What is that girl doing in my palace?" asked the King, frowning.

"Please your Majesty, it is your Majesty's prisoner," answered the captain,--"she is waiting for your Majesty to decide on her punishment."

"What has the prisoner done?" asked the King in as dignified a manner as he could assume, considering that he stood on a tottering brick at the edge of the abyss in which the captain and his prisoner awaited him.

"Please your Majesty, she was heard to say that your Majesty's army was not a real army, and that I, your Majesty,--_I_ was nothing but a toy soldier!" said the captain; and he again shook with anger from head to foot, which, after all, was the only way he could shake, because he was made all in one piece.

"Send the prisoner here," commanded the King. "It is not safe to keep a prisoner on the bottom brick--especially when she is a girl."

So Dimples, wishing from the bottom of her heart that the little playfellow she had teased had not been suddenly changed into a king, clambered up again into the hall.

"Prince Picotee," she said in an anxious undertone, as soon as she was near him, "I do think it is a real palace now, I do really!"

"Why, it's only Dimples!" exclaimed the King, and he nearly tumbled off the edge of the floor in his surprise. Then he remembered that he was a king, and tried to become dignified again, which, of course, was exceedingly difficult now that the Prime Minister's daughter was there to see. As for Dimples, she had not played with the Prince all her life for nothing, and she quite ceased to be frightened of him as soon as she came face to face with him.

"If you let that nasty captain punish me, I'll tell them all you are only a little boy and not a king at all," she whispered; and her round little face twinkled with merriment.

The King wavered. "I always said I would have no girls in my palace," he murmured sorrowfully.

"Will you promise?" persisted Dimples.