been anyone else
instead of the bad Prince who had taken away her kingdom and kept it for
himself--because she was a true Princess and had a heart of gold.

When he had eaten and drunk, he begged the Princess to show him how to
lock and unlock the door. The nurse was asleep, so there was no one to
tell the Princess not to, and she did.

[Illustration: "The junior secretary cried out, 'Look at the bottle!'"
_See page 129._]

"You turn the key like this," she said, "and the door keeps shut. But
turn it nine times around the wrong way, and the door flies open."

And so it did. And the moment it opened, the Prince pushed the white
Princess out of her tower, just as he had pushed her out of her kingdom,
and shut the door. For he wanted to have the tower all for himself. And
there she was, in the street, and on the other side of the way the
dragon was sitting whining, but he did not try to eat her,
because--though the old nurse did not know it--dragons cannot eat white
Princesses with hearts of gold.

The Princess could not walk through the streets of the town in her
milky-silky gown with the daisies on it, and with no hat and no gloves,
so she turned the other way, and ran out across the meadows, toward the
wood. She had never been out of her tower before, and the soft grass
under her feet felt like grass of Paradise.

She ran right into the thickest part of the wood, because she did not
know what her heart was made of, and she was afraid of the dragon, and
there in a dell she came on Elfin and his five and seventy fine pigs. He
was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheerfully
on their hind legs.

"Oh, dear," said the Princess, "do take care of me. I am so frightened."

"I will," said Elfin, putting his arms around her. "Now you are quite
safe. What were you frightened of?"

"The dragon," she said.

"So it's gotten out of the silver bottle," said Elfin. "I hope it's
eaten the Prince."

"No," said Sabrinetta. "But why?"

He told her of the mean trick that the Prince had played on him.

"And he promised me half his kingdom and the hand of his cousin the
Princess," said Elfin.

"Oh, dear, what a shame!" said Sabrinetta, trying to get out of his
arms. "How dare he?"

"What's the matter?" he asked, holding her tighter. "It _was_ a shame,
or at least _I_ thought so. But now he may keep his kingdom, half and
whole, if I may keep what I have."

"What's that?" asked the Princess.

"Why, yo