tly up to him, wagging her tail like a little dog and
rubbing her sides against him, he took courage, and patted her, and
said, "Good bear, good bear! there, there! poor beast, poor beast!"
Then he led her home and ordered that she should be taken great care
of; and he had her put into a garden close to the royal palace, that he
might see her from the window whenever he wished.

One day, when all the people of the house were gone out, and the Prince
was left alone, he went to the window to look out at the bear; and
there he beheld Preziosa, who had taken the piece of wood out of her
mouth, combing her golden tresses. At the sight of this beauty, which
was beyond the beyonds, he had like to have lost his senses with
amazement, and tumbling down the stairs he ran out into the garden. But
Preziosa, who was on the watch and observed him, popped the piece of
wood into her mouth, and was instantly changed into a bear again.

When the Prince came down and looked about in vain for Preziosa, whom
he had seen from the window above, he was so amazed at the trick that a
deep melancholy came over him, and in four days he fell sick, crying
continually, "My bear, my bear!" His mother, hearing him wailing thus,
imagined that the bear had done him some hurt, and gave orders that she
should be killed. But the servants, enamoured of the tameness of the
bear, who made herself beloved by the very stones in the road, took
pity on her, and, instead of killing her, they led her to the wood, and
told the queen that they had put an end to her.

When this came to the ears of the Prince, he acted in a way to pass
belief. Ill or well he jumped out of bed, and was going at once to make
mincemeat of the servants. But when they told him the truth of the
affair, he jumped on horseback, half-dead as he was, and went rambling
about and seeking everywhere, until at length he found the bear. Then
he took her home again, and putting her into a chamber, said to her, "O
lovely morsel for a King, who art shut up in this skin! O candle of
love, who art enclosed within this hairy lanthorn! Wherefore all this
trifling? Do you wish to see me pine and pant, and die by inches? I am
wasting away; without hope, and tormented by thy beauty. And you see
clearly the proof, for I am shrunk two-thirds in size, like wine boiled
down, and am nothing but skin and bone, for the fever is
double-stitched to my veins. So lift up the curtain of this hairy hide,
and let me gaze