u--my pretty, my dear," said Elfin, "and as for the Princess,
his cousin--forgive me, dearest heart, but when I asked for her I hadn't
seen the real Princess, the _only_ Princess, _my_ Princess."

"Do you mean me?" said Sabrinetta.

"Who else?" he asked.

"Yes, but five minutes ago you hadn't seen me!"

"Five minutes ago I was a pig keeper--now I've held you in my arms I'm a
Prince, though I should have to keep pigs to the end of my days."

"But you haven't asked _me_," said the Princess.

"You asked me to take care of you," said Elfin, "and I will--all my life
long."

So that was settled, and they began to talk of really important things,
such as the dragon and the Prince, and all the time Elfin did not know
that this was the Princess, but he knew that she had a heart of gold,
and he told her so, many times.

"The mistake," said Elfin, "was in not having a dragonproof bottle. I
see that now."

"Oh, is that all?" said the Princess. "I can easily get you one of
those--because everything in my tower is dragonproof. We ought to do
something to settle the dragon and save the little children."

So she started off to get the bottle, but she would not let Elfin come
with her.

"If what you say is true," she said, "if you are sure that I have a
heart of gold, the dragon won't hurt me, and somebody must stay with the
pigs."

Elfin was quite sure, so he let her go.

She found the door of her tower open. The dragon had waited patiently
for the Prince, and the moment he opened the door and came out--though
he was only out for an instant to post a letter to his Prime Minister
saying where he was and asking them to send the fire brigade to deal
with the fiery dragon--the dragon ate him. Then the dragon went back to
the wood, because it was getting near his time to grow small for the
night.

So Sabrinetta went in and kissed her nurse and made her a cup of tea and
explained what was going to happen, and that she had a heart of gold, so
the dragon couldn't eat her; and the nurse saw that of course the
Princess was quite safe, and kissed her and let her go.

She took the dragonproof bottle, made of burnished brass, and ran back
to the wood, and to the dell, where Elfin was sitting among his sleek
black pigs, waiting for her.

"I thought you were never coming back," he said. "You have been away a
year, at least."

The Princess sat down beside him among the pigs, and they held each
other's hands till it was dark, and