for the gates are always locked."

"If you do not go now," said the fairy, "you will have to go later, and
that might not be so well. And you should not argue with me, for I am
older than you will ever be, and your godmother, besides. Now kiss me,
for I must be going."

So she flew away, about her other affairs, for she was a very busy old
lady indeed.

In the morning the Princess went to breakfast with the King and the
Queen.

"Mother," she said, "it is high time that I went out into the world!"

The Queen was so startled that she dropped her egg on the floor and the
King was red as a beet with anger.

"Tut! Tut!" he shouted. "What nonsense is this?"

"My fairy godmother was here last night," said the Princess, "and she
told me all about it. I will go this morning, please, if I may."

"Nonsense!" roared the King.

"You will do no such thing!" wailed the Queen.

"There could have been no one here," said the King, "for the gates were
all locked."

"Who told you that you had a fairy godmother?" asked the Queen.

And there was an end of that.

But that night, after the Princess had said her prayers and crept into
bed, she heard her godmother calling to her from the Garden, so she
slipped on her cloak and stole out into the moonlight. There was no one
to be seen, so she pattered along in her little bare feet until she came
to the gate in the wall.

While she was hesitating whether or not to run back to her little white
bed, the gates of triple brass opened as easily as if her godmother had
oiled them, and the Little Princess passed through the copper gates, and
the iron gate, and out into fairyland.

But if you ask me why she saw the guards at the gates no more than they
saw her, I can only tell you that I do not know, and you will have to be
satisfied with that.

As for the Princess, she was as happy as a duck in a puddle. As she
danced along through the forests, the flowers broke from their stems to
join her, the trees dropped golden fruit into her very hands, and the
little brook which runs through fairyland left its course, and followed
her, singing.

And all the while, her godmother was coming down behind her, close at
hand, to see that she came to no harm; but the Princess did not know
that.

At last she came to the place where the Prince from the west lay
sleeping. He was dreaming that he had climbed the wall and had found
the Princess, so that he smiled in his sleep and she knelt above him,