the nurse and all the others cried harder than ever, and said
everything they could think of to turn the Princess from her idea.
But the more they said the more determined she was, and at last they
consented to make a tiny hole in the tower on the side that looked
towards the city gates.

After scratching and scraping all day and all night, they presently
made a hole through which they could, with great difficulty, push a very
slender needle, and out of this the Princess looked at the daylight for
the first time. She was so dazzled and delighted by what she saw, that
there she stayed, never taking her eyes away from the peep-hole for a
single minute, until presently the ambassador's procession appeared in
sight.

At the head of it rode Fanfaronade himself upon a white horse, which
pranced and caracoled to the sound of the trumpets. Nothing could have
been more splendid than the ambassador's attire. His coat was nearly
hidden under an embroidery of pearls and diamonds, his boots were solid
gold, and from his helmet floated scarlet plumes. At the sight of him
the Princess lost her wits entirely, and determined that Fanfaronade and
nobody else would she marry.

'It is quite impossible,' she said, 'that his master should be half as
handsome and delightful. I am not ambitious, and having spent all my
life in this tedious tower, anything--even a house in the country--will
seem a delightful change. I am sure that bread and water shared with
Fanfaronade will please me far better than roast chicken and sweetmeats
with anybody else.'

And so she went on talk, talk, talking, until her waiting-women
wondered where she got it all from. But when they tried to stop her,
and represented that her high rank made it perfectly impossible that she
should do any such thing, she would not listen, and ordered them to be
silent.

As soon as the ambassador arrived at the palace, the Queen started to
fetch her daughter.

All the streets were spread with carpets, and the windows were full
of ladies who were waiting to see the Princess, and carried baskets of
flowers and sweetmeats to shower upon her as she passed.

They had hardly begun to get the Princess ready when a dwarf arrived,
mounted upon an elephant. He came from the five fairies, and brought for
the Princess a crown, a sceptre, and a robe of golden brocade, with a
petticoat marvellously embroidered with butterflies' wings. They also
sent a casket of jewels, so splendid that no