them his bag of ducats.

They led him into a hall of the castle and told him to put his gold on a
table. If he did so, perhaps Peerless Beauty would show herself and
perhaps she wouldn't.

Danilo did as the guards directed and then faced a curtain behind which,
they told him, Peerless Beauty was seated. The curtain opened a little,
but instead of showing her face Peerless Beauty extended only one
finger. However, that finger was so ravishingly beautiful that Danilo
almost fainted with delight. He would have stayed gazing on that one
enchanting finger for hours if the guards had not taken him roughly by
the shoulders and thrown him out of the castle.

"Come again when you've got more gold!" they shouted after him.

Like a man in a dream Danilo rode back to the old woman's hut.

"Now, my son, are you satisfied?" she asked him. "Are you ready now to
go home and settle down like a sensible young man?"

"Oh, granny!" Danilo raved. "Such a finger! I must see that finger again
if it cost me my whole fortune!"

He slept that night in the old woman's hut and the next day returned to
his native village. There he got another bag of the golden ducats which
his father had left him and at once started back to the castle of
Peerless Beauty.

This time that heartless maiden stripped him again of his gold, showed
him two of her enchanting fingers, and as before had her guards throw
him out of the castle.

"Come again when you've got more gold!" they shouted after him.

That's exactly what the poor young man did. He went back and back until
the fortune that his father had left him was entirely squandered. And
all he had seen of Peerless Beauty up to that time were the fingers of
one hand! Shouldn't you suppose that now with all his wealth lost he
would get over his foolish infatuation? Well, he didn't.

"I must go back again!" he kept telling himself.

His gold was gone but he still had his father's house. It was a big old
house with garrets and cellars.

"Perhaps if I hunt I shall find some treasures hidden away in odd
corners," Danilo said.

So he hunted upstairs and down. He opened old boxes and rummaged about
among the dark rafters. One day he came upon a funny looking little cap.

"I wonder whose this was," he thought to himself.

He went to a mirror and tried the cap on. Then a strange thing happened.
The moment the cap touched his head, Danilo disappeared.

"Ah!" he cried, "it's a magic cap and the moment I pu