, where her toilet was made by maids,
all of them quaint little pagodas.

The Princess was astounded, and expressed her delight at her great good
fortune.

There was not a day that the pagodas did not come and tell her all the
news of the courts where they had been in different parts of the world.
People plotting for war, others seeking for peace; wives who were
unfaithful, old widowers who married wives a thousand times more
unsuitable than those they had lost; discovered treasures; favourites at
court, and out of it, who had fallen from the coveted seat they
occupied; jealous wives, to say nothing at all about husbands; women who
flirted, and naughty children;--in fact they told her everything that
was going on, to make her happy and to help to pass the time away.

Now one night it happened that the Princess could not sleep, and she lay
awake, thinking. At last she said: 'What is going to happen to me? Shall
I always be here? My life is passed more happily than I ever could wish;
but, all the same, there is a feeling in my heart that there is
something missing.'

'Ah! Princess,' said a voice, 'is it not your own fault? If you would
only love me, you would recognise at once that it would be possible to
remain in this palace for ever, alone with the one you loved, without
ever wishing to leave it.'

'Which little pagoda is speaking to me now?' she asked. 'What dreadful
counsel to give me, contrary to all I have been taught in my life!'

'It is not a pagoda who is talking to you; it is the unhappy King who
loves you, madam.'

'A King who loves me!' replied the Princess. 'Has this King eyes, or
does he need glasses? Has he not seen that I am the ugliest person in
the world?'

'Yes, I have seen you, madam. All that you are, and all that you may
have been, make not the least difference to me. I repeat, I love you.'

The Princess did not speak again, but she spent the rest of the night
thinking over this adventure.

Every day on getting up she found new clothes and fresh jewels; it was
too much homage, considering she was so ugly.

One night--it must have been the darkest night of the whole
year--Laideronnette was asleep, and, on awakening, she felt that some
one sat near her bed. The Princess put out her hand to feel, but
somebody took her hand and kissed it, and in so doing let teardrops fall
upon it. She knew full well that it must be the invisible King.

'What do you want with me?' she said. 'Can I love so