r.

"Princess," said he, "why are you afraid of me? This is the palace of
the fairy-queen my mother, and the princesses my sisters, who will
take care of you, and love you tenderly. Enter this chariot, and I
will convey you there."

Graciosa entered, and passing through many a lovely forest glade,
where it was clear daylight, and shepherds and shepherdesses were
dancing to merry music, they reached the palace, where the queen and
her two daughters received the forlorn princess with great kindness,
and led her through many rooms of rock-crystal, glittering with
jewels, where, to her amazement, Graciosa saw the history of her own
life, even down to this adventure in the forest, painted on the walls.

"How is this?" she said. "Prince, you know everything about me."

"Yes; and I wish to preserve everything concerning you," said he
tenderly; whereupon Graciosa cast down her eyes. She was only too
happy, and afraid that she should learn to love the fairy-prince too
much.

She spent eight days in his palace--days full of every enjoyment; and
Percinet tried all the arguments he could think of to induce her to
marry him, and remain there for ever. But the good and gentle Graciosa
remembered her father who was once so kind to her, and she preferred
rather to suffer than to be wanting in duty. She entreated Percinet to
use his fairy power to send her home again, and meantime to tell her
what had become of her father.

"Come with me into the great tower there, and you shall see for
yourself."

Thereupon he took her to the top of a tower, prodigiously high, put
her little finger to his lips, and her foot upon his foot. Then he
bade her look, and she saw as hi a picture, or as in a play upon the
stage, the King and Grognon sitting together on their throne. The
latter was telling how Graciosa had hanged herself in a cave.

"She will not be much loss, sire; and as, when dead, she was far too
frightful for you to look at, I have given orders to bury her at
once."

She might well say that, for she had had a large faggot put into a
coffin, and sealed up; the king and all the nation mourned over it;
and now, that she was no more, they declared there never was such a
sweet creature as the lost princess.

The sight of her father's grief quite overcame Graciosa. "Oh,
Percinet!" she cried, "my father believes me dead. If you love me,
take me home."

The prince consented, though very sorrowfully, saying that she was as
cruel to