and I must get on as best I can.'

'It may not be as impossible as you think,' answered the queen. 'At any
rate, tell me.'

There was silence between them for a moment, then, turning away his
head, the prince answered gently:

'I have fallen in love with a beautiful deer!'

'Ah, if that is all,' exclaimed the queen joyfully. And she told him in
broken words that, as he had guessed, it was no deer but an enchanted
maiden who had won back the crown and brought her home to her own
people.

'She is here, in my palace,' added the queen. 'I will take you to her.'

But when the prince stood before the girl, who was so much more
beautiful than anything he had ever dreamed of, he lost all his courage,
and stood with bent head before her.

Then the maiden drew near, and her eyes, as she looked at him, were the
eyes of the deer that day in the forest. She whispered softly:

'By your favour let me go, and do not kill me.'

And the prince remembered her words, and his heart was filled with
happiness. And the queen, his mother, watched them and smiled.

The Owl and the Eagle

[From Cuentos Populars Catalans, por lo Dr. D. Francisco de S. Maspons y
Labros.]

Once upon a time, in a savage country where the snow lies deep for many
months in the year, there lived an owl and an eagle. Though they were so
different in many ways they became great friends, and at length set up
house together, one passing the day in hunting and the other the night.
In this manner they did not see very much of each other--and perhaps
agreed all the better for that; but at any rate they were perfectly
happy, and only wanted one thing, or, rather, two things, and that was a
wife for each.

'I really am too tired when I come home in the evening to clean up the
house,' said the eagle.

'And I am much too sleepy at dawn after a long night's hunting to begin
to sweep and dust,' answered the owl. And they both made up their minds
that wives they must have.

They flew about in their spare moments to the young ladies of their
acquaintance, but the girls all declared they preferred one husband to
two. The poor birds began to despair, when, one evening, after they had
been for a wonder hunting together, they found two sisters fast asleep
on their two beds. The eagle looked at the owl and the owl looked at the
eagle.

'They will make capital wives if they will only stay with us,'
said they. And they flew off to give themselves a wash, and to m