ood old Muscadel!' said the dairymaid that Pandora had turned into;
'now we'll be married and live as happy as two mice in a cheese!'

'Never in this world!' cried Muscadel, snatching the ring from her hand,
which was not manners, but we must remember that he was very much upset.
He snatched the ring, and he rushed out of the room and out of the
palace, and when he got to the archers' quarters he flung himself face
down among the rushes on the floor, and lay there till his comrades
began to mock him and even to kick him as he lay; and then he got up and
fought them with his red fists, one down, t'other come on, till seven of
them had owned that they did not want any more.

'Oh dear! oh dear!' said the King in his palace; 'I'd rather have had
you flower-fairy size for life than like this! We must get back the
jewel and make you into your old self.'

'Not a bit of it,' said the dairymaid Princess. 'I never was so happy in
my life. I love that lovely archer, and if I'm a Princess you can order
him to marry me, and he'll have to.'

'Lackaday!' said the King. 'Dairymaids don't seem to love like
Princesses do.'

'I dare say not,' said she, 'but we know our own minds. I tell you I'm
happy, governor, and I'll stay as I am.'

The dairymaid Princess called for cold pork and cheese and beer, and,
having had quite enough of all three, she went to bed in the Princess's
green and white bedroom.

Now, when all the archers had gone to sleep poor Muscadel stole out and
wandered through the palace gardens, and looked at the white fountains
rising and falling in the moonlight. He saw the white lilies sleeping
standing up, just like real live sentinels. He saw the white pea-cocks
roosting in the yew-trees, and the white swans cuddled up among the
reeds by the lake. He went hither and thither through the cold white
beauty of the night, and he thought and thought, but he could not think
any thought that was worth the trouble of thinking.

And at last he sat down on a marble bench and very nearly wished that he
were dead. Not quite, of course, because people very seldom do that; and
if he had there would have been an end to this story.

The silence and the moonlight soothed him; his poor brain felt clearer
and brighter, and at last he had the sense to say, without at all
knowing that he was saying anything sensible, 'I wish I was clever.'

And instantly he was.

The change was so great, so sudden, and so violent that it nearly cho