was not really as large as it looked; that it was a Roman nose,
and you had only to open any history to see that every hero has a large
nose. The Queen, who was devoted to her baby, was pleased with what they
told her, and when she looked at Hyacinth again, his nose certainly did
not seem to her _quite_ so large.

The Prince was brought up with great care; and, as soon as he could
speak, they told him all sorts of dreadful stories about people who had
short noses. No one was allowed to come near him whose nose did not more
or less resemble his own, and the courtiers, to get into favor with the
Queen, took to pulling their babies' noses several times every day
to make them grow long. But, do what they would, they were nothing by
comparison with the Prince's.

When he grew sensible he learned history; and whenever any great prince
or beautiful princess was spoken of, his teachers took care to tell him
that they had long noses.

His room was hung with pictures, all of people with very large noses;
and the Prince grew up so convinced that a long nose was a great beauty,
that he would not on any account have had his own a single inch shorter!

When his twentieth birthday was passed the Queen thought it was time
that he should be married, so she commanded that the portraits of
several princesses should be brought for him to see, and among the
others was a picture of the Dear Little Princess!

Now, she was the daughter of a great king, and would some day possess
several kingdoms herself; but Prince Hyacinth had not a thought to spare
for anything of that sort, he was so much struck with her beauty. The
Princess, whom he thought quite charming, had, however, a little saucy
nose, which, in her face, was the prettiest thing possible, but it was
a cause of great embarrassment to the courtiers, who had got into such
a habit of laughing at little noses that they sometimes found themselves
laughing at hers before they had time to think; but this did not do at
all before the Prince, who quite failed to see the joke, and actually
banished two of his courtiers who had dared to mention disrespectfully
the Dear Little Princess's tiny nose!

The others, taking warning from this, learned to think twice before they
spoke, and one even went so far as to tell the Prince that, though it
was quite true that no man could be worth anything unless he had a
long nose, still, a woman's beauty was a different thing; and he knew
a learned man wh