of the spring this morning: I
told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never
get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come
in.'
While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said:
'Open the door, my princess dear,
Open the door to thy true love here!
And mind the words that thou and I said
By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'
Then the king said to the young princess, 'As you have given your word
you must keep it; so go and let him in.' She did so, and the frog hopped
into the room, and then straight on--tap, tap--plash, plash--from the
bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where
the princess sat. 'Pray lift me upon chair,' said he to the princess,
'and let me sit next to you.' As soon as she had done this, the frog
said, 'Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.' This
she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, 'Now I am
tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.' And the princess,
though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the
pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. As soon as it was
light he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house.
'Now, then,' thought the princess, 'at last he is gone, and I shall be
troubled with him no more.'
But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same
tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said:
'Open the door, my princess dear,
Open the door to thy true love here!
And mind the words that thou and I said
By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'
And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon
her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did
the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was
astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her
with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head
of her bed.
He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had
changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till
some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from
her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. 'You,' said the
prince, 'have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for
but that you should go with me into my father's kingdom, where I will
marry y
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