from,' said the spoilt girl. 'I will
marry him and nobody else, and we will live together till we die.'

'You will tell another tale,' replied the king, 'when you ask him his
secret. After all he is no better than a servant.'

'That is nothing to me,' said the princess, 'for I love him. He will
tell his secret to me, and will find a place in the middle of my heart.'

But the king shook his head, and gave orders that the lad was to be
lodged in the summer-house.

One day, about a week later, the princess put on her finest dress, and
went to pay him a visit. She looked so beautiful that, at the sight of
her, the book dropped from his hand, and he stood up speechless. 'Tell
me,' she said, coaxingly, 'what is this wonderful secret? Just whisper
it in my ear, and I will give you a kiss.'

'My angel,' he answered, 'be wise, and ask no questions, if you wish to
get safely back to your father's palace; I have kept my secret all these
years, and do not mean to tell it now.'

However, the girl would not listen, and went on pressing him, till at
last he slapped her face so hard that her nose bled. She shrieked with
pain and rage, and ran screaming back to the palace, where her father
was waiting to hear if she had succeeded. 'I will starve you to death,
you son of a dragon,' cried he, when he saw her dress streaming with
blood; and he ordered all the masons and bricklayers in the town to come
before him.

'Build me a tower as fast as you can,' he said, 'and see that there is
room for a stool and a small table, and for nothing else. The men set
to work, and in two hours the tower was built, and they proceeded to the
palace to inform the king that his commands were fulfilled. On the way
they met the princess, who began to talk to one of the masons, and when
the rest were out of hearing she asked if he could manage to make a hole
in the tower, which nobody could see, large enough for a bottle of wine
and some food to pass through.

'To be sure I can,' said the mason, turning back, and in a few minutes
the hole was bored.

At sunset a large crowd assembled to watch the youth being led to the
tower, and after his misdeeds had been proclaimed he was solemnly walled
up. But every morning the princess passed him in food through the hole,
and every third day the king sent his secretary to climb up a ladder
and look down through a little window to see if he was dead. But the
secretary always brought back the report that he was fa