ome strange
mystery about this, he saw quite clearly there was nothing to be gained
by asking any more questions. So he rode back to the palace, his head
filled with the vision he had seen through the keyhole.

All night long he tossed about, and awoke the next morning in a high
fever. The queen, who had no other child, and lived in a state of
perpetual anxiety about this one, at once gave him up for lost, and
indeed his sudden illness puzzled the greatest doctors, who tried the
usual remedies in vain. At last they told the queen that some secret
sorrow must be at the bottom of all this, and she threw herself on her
knees beside her son's bed, and implored him to confide his trouble to
her. If it was ambition to be king, his father would gladly resign the
cares of the crown, and suffer him to reign in his stead; or, if it was
love, everything should be sacrificed to get for him the wife he
desired, even if she were daughter of a king with whom the country was
at war at present!

'Madam,' replied the prince, whose weakness would hardly allow him to
speak, 'do not think me so unnatural as to wish to deprive my father of
his crown. As long as he lives I shall remain the most faithful of his
subjects! And as to the princesses you speak of, I have seen none that I
should care for as a wife, though I would always obey your wishes,
whatever it might cost me.'

'Ah! my son,' cried she, 'we will do anything in the world to save your
life--and ours too, for if you die, we shall die also.'

'Well, then,' replied the prince, 'I will tell you the only thing that
will cure me--a cake made by the hand of "Donkey Skin."'

'Donkey Skin?' exclaimed the queen, who thought her son had gone mad;
'and who or what is that?'

'Madam,' answered one of the attendants present, who had been with the
prince at the farm, '"Donkey Skin" is, next to the wolf, the most
disgusting creature on the face of the earth. She is a girl who wears a
black, greasy skin, and lives at your farmer's as hen-wife.'

'Never mind,' said the queen; 'my son seems to have eaten some of her
pastry. It is the whim of a sick man, no doubt; but send at once and let
her bake a cake.'

The attendant bowed and ordered a page to ride with the message.

Now it is by no means certain that 'Donkey Skin' had not caught a
glimpse of the prince, either when his eyes looked through the keyhole,
or else from her little window, which was over the road. But whether she
had actual