ng it until he
could reach a hostelry and provide himself with a fresh steed, when he
heard a loud throbbing in the air behind him. The next moment a large
flight of storks passed over his head and descended with a car on a spot
some yards in advance of him. He saw at once that one of the occupants
was Daphne, and leaving his horse by the wayside he went forward to meet
her, not without some constraint and uncertainty, however, for his fear
that she would love him no longer had not ceased to haunt him.

She had alighted and was standing still, her face expressing wonder and
something of alarm. Could this splendid gallant cavalier really be her
homely Girofle? she was thinking, and if he were, how could he help her
to overcome this paralysing sense of his being a stranger? He came
towards her, feeling almost as shy as she.

"Daphne! my dearest!" he said, stretching out his arms, "am I so changed
that you can't care for me any more?" And, as she heard his voice, all
her doubts and apprehensions suddenly fled.

"No," she murmured, placing a fair hand on each of his broad shoulders
and looking fearlessly up into his face. "You are just the same,
really. My very own Girofle! And, oh, I'm so glad!"

"And you forgive me for deceiving you, dearest?" he asked when the first
rapture of meeting and reassurance was over. "I was bound in honour to
tell you nothing."

"I know," she said; "the Court Godmother is to blame for that--not you.
And I was prepared to find you changed, Gir--Mirliflor--only--not quite
so changed as this."

"If you would love me better as I was, darling," he said, "tell me so,
and I will make her transform me again. I will become Girofle for the
rest of my life--rather than lose you!"

"I don't think she is well enough to be asked to do that now," replied
Daphne. "And, besides"--and here she held him from her at arm's
length--"besides, now I look at you, you really are rather nice, you
know! No, darling, I won't have you altered again."

After all, this was only in accordance with Maerchenland's precedents.
Did Beauty, for instance, resent her Beast's emergence into a Prince?
All the same, Daphne was a little ashamed of herself for the increasing
satisfaction she felt in Mirliflor's good looks--it seemed almost an
infidelity to Girofle--but she could not help it, and did not even try.

The Baron had tactfully remained with the storks until, in his opinion,
it was time to interrupt the lovers, when he