ked
him. He drew two or three difficult breaths, and then he said:

'Oh, I see! How stupid of me! I wish I were the kind of person the real
Princess could love.'

And he felt his body change. He grew thinner, and his face seemed to
grow a different shape. He hastened to the lake and leaned over it, and
saw by the moonlight the reflection of his own face in the water. It was
not particularly handsome, but he was not ashamed of the deep-set eyes,
largish nose, and firm lips and chin.

'So that's the sort of man she could love!' he said, and went home to
bed like a sensible person.

Early in the morning he went out into the palace garden, and it was not
all gray and white, as it had been the night before, with moonlight and
white lilies, but gold and red, with sunshine and roses, and hollyhocks
and carnations.

He went and waited under the Princess's window, for he had grown clever
enough to know that the Princess, since she was now a dairymaid, would
be awake betimes. And sure enough the green silk curtains were presently
drawn back, and the drowsy, blowzy, frowzy face of the dairymaid looked
out.

'Halloa!' she said to Muscadel, among the roses, 'what are _you_ up to?'

'I am the archer you love,' said Muscadel, among the roses.

'Not you,' she said.

'But indeed!' said he.

[Illustration: '"You've got a face as long as a fiddle."'--Page 367.]

'Lawks!' said the dairymaid.

'Don't you love me like this?' said Muscadel.

'Not a bit,' said she; 'go along, do! You've got a face as long as a
fiddle, and I never could abide black hair.'

'I'm going to stay like this,' said he.

'Then what's to become of me?' she asked, and waited for an answer with
her mouth half open.

'I'll tell you,' said Muscadel. 'You can stay as you are all your life,
and go on loving an archer who isn't anywhere at all, or I'll lend you
the magic jewel, and then you can change back into the Princess. And
when you're the Princess, you'll love me ever so much more than you ever
loved the archer.'

'Humph!' said the dairymaid, fingering the Princess's pearl necklace.
'Well, if my dear archer really isn't any more, anywhere---- As you say,
the really important thing is to love someone.' Although she was a silly
dairymaid she had the sense to see that. 'Give me the jewel,' she said.

He threw it up, and she caught it overhand, put it on, and said:

'I wish I was the Princess again.'

And there was the Princess leaning out of the wi