orer said, "even if she does look like a
frog."

"I don't care what she looks like," the Prince said. "I love her
singing and I love her. And I mean what I say: I'll marry her if she'll
marry me. My father, the Tsar, bids me and my brothers present him our
brides to-morrow. He bids all the brides bring him a flower and he says
he'll give the kingdom to the prince whose bride brings the loveliest
flower. Little Singing Frog, will you be my bride and will you come to
Court to-morrow bringing a flower?"

"Yes, my Prince," the frog girl said, "I will. But I must not shame you
by hopping to Court in the dust. I must ride. So, will you send me a
snow-white cock from your father's barnyard?"

"I will," the Prince promised, and before night the snow-white cock had
arrived at the laborer's cottage.

Early the next morning the frog girl prayed to the Sun.

"O golden Sun," she said, "I need your help! Give me some lovely clothes
woven of your golden rays for I would not shame my Prince when I go to
Court."

The Sun heard her prayer and gave her a gown of cloth of gold.

Instead of a flower she took a spear of wheat in her hand and then when
the time came she mounted the white cock and rode to the palace.

[Illustration: _This, the Bride of the Youngest Prince, Is My Choice_]

The guards at the palace gate at first refused to admit her.

"This is no place for frogs!" they said to her. "You're looking for a
pond!"

But when she told them she was the Youngest Prince's bride, they were
afraid to drive her away. So they let her ride through the gate.

"Strange!" they murmured to one another. "The Youngest Prince's bride!
She looks like a frog and that was certainly a cock she was riding,
wasn't it?"

They stepped inside the gates to look after her and then they saw an
amazing sight. The frog girl, still seated on the white cock, was
shaking out the folds of a golden gown. She dropped the gown over her
head and instantly there was no frog and no white cock but a lovely
maiden mounted on a snow-white horse!

Well, the frog girl entered the palace with two other girls, the
promised brides of the older princes. They were just ordinary girls both
of them. To see them you wouldn't have paid any attention to them one
way or the other. But standing beside the lovely bride of the Youngest
Prince they seemed more ordinary than ever.

The first girl had a rose in her hand. The Tsar looked at it and at her,
sniffed his nose slig