as now mistress of the beautiful castle, and lived there in
peace and happiness. And soon the noise of her beauty spread abroad, and
many wooers came to try and gain her hand.

Among them came one Prince Fickle by name, who very quickly won the love
of fair Helena. One day, as they were sitting happily together under a
lime-tree in front of the castle, Prince Fickle broke the sad news to
Helena that he must return to his parents to get their consent to his
marriage. He promised faithfully to come back to her as soon as he
could, and begged her to await his return under the lime-tree where they
had spent so many happy hours.

Helena kissed him tenderly at parting on his left cheek, and begged him
not to let anyone else kiss him there while they were parted, and she
promised to sit and wait for him under the lime-tree, for she never
doubted that the Prince would be faithful to her and would return as
quickly as he could.

And so she sat for three days and three nights under the tree without
moving. But when her lover never returned, she grew very unhappy, and
determined to set out to look for him. She took as many of her jewels as
she could carry, and three of her most beautiful dresses, one
embroidered with stars, one with moons, and the third with suns, all of
pure gold. Far and wide she wandered through the world, but nowhere did
she find any trace of her bridegroom. At last she gave up the search in
despair. She could not bear to return to her own castle where she had
been so happy with her lover, but determined rather to endure her
loneliness and desolation in a strange land. She took a place as
herd-girl with a peasant, and buried her jewels and beautiful dresses in
a safe and hidden spot.

Every day she drove the cattle to pasture, and all the time she thought
of nothing but her faithless bridegroom. She was very devoted to a
certain little calf in the herd, and made a great pet of it, feeding it
out of her own hands. She taught it to kneel before her, and then she
whispered in its ear:

'Kneel, little calf, kneel;
Be faithful and leal,
Not like Prince Fickle,
Who once on a time
Left his fair Helena
Under the lime.'

After some years passed in this way, she heard that the daughter of the
king of the country she was living in was going to marry a Prince called
'Fickle.' Everybody rejoiced at the news except poor Helena, to whom it
was a fearful blow, for at the bottom of her heart she had alway