olden apple to the lovely Princess, whose objections were now entirely
silenced. They divided the apple of life and ate it together, and her
heart grew full of love for him, so they lived together to a great age
in undisturbed happiness.

Grimm.

THE STORY OF A CLEVER TAILOR

Once upon a time there lived an exceedingly proud Princess. If any
suitor for her hand ventured to present himself, she would give him some
riddle or conundrum to guess, and if he failed to do so, he was hunted
out of the town with scorn and derision. She gave out publicly that all
comers were welcome to try their skill, and that whoever could solve her
riddle should be her husband.

Now it happened that three tailors had met together, and the two elder
thought, that after having successfully put in so many fine and strong
stitches with never a wrong one amongst them, they were certain to do
the right thing here too. The third tailor was a lazy young scamp who
did not even know his own trade properly, but who thought that surely
luck would stand by him now, just for once, for, if not, what _was_ to
become of him?

The two others said to him, 'You just stay at home, you'll never get on
much with your small allowance of brains.' But the little tailor was not
to be daunted, and said he had set his mind on it and meant to shift for
himself, so off he started as though the whole world belonged to him.

The three tailors arrived at Court, where they had themselves duly
presented to the Princess, and begged she would propound her riddles,
'for,' said they, 'here were the right men at last, with wits so sharp
and so fine you might almost thread a needle with them.'

Then said the Princess, 'I have on my head two different kinds of hair.
Of what colours are they?'

'If that's all,' said the first tailor, 'they are most likely black and
white, like the kind of cloth we call pepper-and-salt.'

'Wrong,' said the Princess.

'Then,' said the second tailor, 'if they are not black and white, no
doubt they are red and brown, like my father's Sunday coat.'

'Wrong again,' said the Princess; 'now let the third speak. I see he
thinks he knows all about it.'

Then the young tailor stepped boldly to the front and said, 'The
Princess has one silver and one golden hair on her head, and those are
the two colours.'

When the Princess heard this she turned quite pale, and almost fainted
away with fear, for the little tailor had hit the mark, and s