ary. His own curling brown locks were
replaced by short black hair, and his complexion had deepened from its
original slight bronze to a swarthy hue. Even his silk and velvet suit
had suffered a change and was now a coarse leather jerkin with hose and
sleeves of russet cloth.

"You might just as well have made a beast of me outright!" he said
bitterly. "I should have been as likely to win the heart of any maiden
as I am now."

"My dear Mirliflor," retorted the Fairy, "if, as you are now, you cannot
win this girl by your own worth, it will either be because she is not
worth winning or you have not sufficient worth to deserve her."

"And how," he asked, "am I to set about winning her?"

"You will start at once for Eswareinmal--on horseback if you like,
provided your horse and his trappings are not too fine. You will leave
him outside the City, and find your way to one of the side entrances of
the Palace, where you will ask an attendant to inform me that
'Girofle'--as you will henceforth call yourself--has arrived in
obedience to my summons. I will arrange that you shall see this girl,
and it will then be for you to say whether you will go any further or
not in this enterprise. You had better leave the Palace without seeing
the King, your father, and I will explain to him that there were good
and sufficient reasons for your secret departure."

However, when she did obtain an audience from King Tournesol, she saw
that he was not in a mood that promised a favourable reception to any
further matrimonial project on Mirliflor's behalf--at all events from
her. So she merely informed him that Mirliflor had left Clairdelune to
seek a bride for himself, and that he might be absent for some time. She
did not mention his transformation, and was disingenuous enough to
agree with the King that the Prince had behaved most unfilially in
departing without permission. But King Tournesol was too glad that his
son's thoughts had again turned to marriage to be very seriously angry,
and the Fairy left him in tolerable good humour, and got back to
Eswareinmal long before Mirliflor, who reached the Palace at last, after
a journey of entirely unfamiliar discomfort and a total lack of the
deference and attention he had always hitherto received as of right. He
made his way in an aggrieved and rather rebellious frame of mind to a
side entrance and, on inquiring for the Court Godmother, was taken at
once to her apartments. After hearing his tale