fine trees grew around the tank. Into one of these the young
Prince climbed one evening (having made a sort of light thatched roof
across two of the boughs, to keep off the heavy dews), and there he
watched all the night through, but with no more success than his
predecessors. There lay the lotus plants, still in the moonlight,
without so much as a thieving wind coming to break off one of the
flowers. The Prince began to get very sleepy, and thought the
delinquent, whoever he might be, could not intend to return, when, in
the very early morning, before it was light, who should come down to
the tank but an old woman he had often seen near the palace gate?
"Aha!" thought the Prince, "this, then, is the thief; but what can
this queer old woman want with lotus flowers?" Imagine his
astonishment when the old woman sat down on the steps of the tank and
began pulling the skin off her face and arms, and from underneath the
shrivelled yellow skin came the loveliest face he had ever beheld! So
fair, so fresh, so young, so gloriously beautiful, that, appearing
thus suddenly, it dazzled the Prince's eyes like a flash of golden
lightning. "Ah," thought he, "can this be a woman or a spirit? a devil
or an angel in disguise?"

The Princess twisted up her glossy black hair, and, plucking a red
lotus, placed it in it, and dabbled her feet in the water, and amused
herself by putting round her neck a string of pearls that had been her
sister's necklace. Then, as the sun was rising, she threw away the
lotus, and covering her face and arms again with the withered skin,
went hastily away. When the Prince got home, the first thing he said
to his parents was, "Father! mother! I should like to marry that old
woman who stands all day at the farmer's gate, just opposite!" "What!"
they cried, "the boy is mad! Marry that skinny old thing! You
cannot--you are a King's son. Are there not enough Queens and
Princesses in the world, that you should wish to marry a wretched old
beggar-woman?" But he answered, "Above all things I should like to
marry that old woman. You know that I have ever been a dutiful and
obedient son. In this matter, I pray you, grant me my desire." Then,
seeing he was really in earnest about the matter, and that nothing
they could say would alter his mind, they listened to his urgent
entreaties--not, however, without much grief and vexation--and sent
out the guards, to fetch the old woman (who was really the Princess in
disguise) t