, she stood up and called gently, "Oh
Coo-me-doo, come down to me, come down." Then she whistled so softly and
sweetly, and stretched out her white hands above her head so
entreatingly, that Prince Florentine left his branch, and flew down and
alighted gently on her shoulder.

The delight of the maiden knew no bounds. She kissed and fondled her new
pet, which perched quite familiarly on her arm, and promised him a
latticed silver cage, with bars of solid gold.

The bird allowed the girl to carry him home, and soon the beautiful cage
was made, and hung up on the wall of her chamber, just inside the
window, and Coo-me-doo, as the dove was named, placed inside.

He seemed perfectly happy, and grew so tame that soon he went with his
mistress wherever she went, and all the people who lived near the castle
grew quite accustomed to seeing the Earl's daughter driving or riding
with her tame dove on her shoulder.

When she went out to play at ball, Coo-me-doo would go with her, and
perch up in his old place, and watch her with his bright dark eyes. One
day when she was tossing the ball among the branches it rolled away, and
for a long time she could not find it, and at last a voice behind her
said, "Here it is," and, turning round, she saw to her astonishment a
handsome young man dressed all in dove-gray satin, who handed her the
ball with a stately bow.

Lady Grizel was frightened, for no strangers were allowed inside her
father's park, and she could not think where he had come from; but just
as she was about to call out for help, the young man smiled and said,
"Lady, dost thou not know thine own Coo-me-doo?"

Then she glanced up into the branches, but the bird was gone, and as she
hesitated (for the stranger spoke so kindly and courteously she did not
feel very much alarmed), he took her hand in his.

"'Tis true, my own love," he said; "but if thou canst not recognise thy
favourite when his gray plumage is changed into gray samite, mayhap thou
wilt know him when the gray samite is once more changed into softest
feathers; and, pressing a tiny gold locket which he wore, to his heart,
he vanished, and in his stead was her own gray dove, hovering down to
his resting-place on her shoulder.

"Oh, I cannot understand it, I cannot understand it," she cried, putting
up her hand to stroke her pet; but the feathers seemed to slip from
between her fingers, and once more the gallant stranger stood before
her.

"Sit thee down and