frain from kissing her--he was
such a thorough Soldier. Then the dog ran back with the Princess. But
when it was morning, and the King and Queen were drinking tea, the
Princess said that the night before she had had such a strange dream
about a dog and a Soldier: she had ridden on the dog's back, and the
Soldier had kissed her.

'That is certainly a fine story,' said the Queen. But the next night one
of the ladies-in-waiting was to watch at the Princess's bed, to see if
it was only a dream, or if it had actually happened.

The Soldier had an overpowering longing to see the Princess again, and
so the dog came in the middle of the night and fetched her, running as
fast as he could. But the lady-in-waiting slipped on india-rubber shoes
and followed them. When she saw them disappear into a large house, she
thought to herself: 'Now I know where it is; 'and made a great cross on
the door with a piece of chalk. Then she went home and lay down, and the
dog came back also, with the Princess. But when he saw that a cross had
been made on the door of the house where the Soldier lived, he took a
piece of chalk also, and made crosses on all the doors in the town; and
that was very clever, for now the lady-in-waiting could not find the
right house, as there were crosses on all the doors.

Early next morning the King, Queen, ladies-in-waiting, and officers came
out to see where the Princess had been.

'There it is!' said the King, when he saw the first door with a cross on
it.

'No, there it is, my dear!' said the Queen, when she likewise saw a door
with a cross.

'But here is one, and there is another!' they all exclaimed; wherever
they looked there was a cross on the door. Then they realised that the
sign would not help them at all.

But the Queen was an extremely clever woman, who could do a great deal
more than just drive in a coach. She took her great golden scissors, cut
up a piece of silk, and made a pretty little bag of it. This she filled
with the finest buckwheat grains, and tied it round the Princess' neck;
this done, she cut a little hole in the bag, so that the grains would
strew the whole road wherever the Princess went.

In the night the dog came again, took the Princess on his back and ran
away with her to the Soldier, who was very much in love with her, and
would have liked to have been a Prince, so that he might have had her
for his wife.

The dog did not notice how the grains were strewn right from the ca