n. All this worry brought back the fever, which the
arrival of the cake had diminished for the time; and the doctors, not
knowing what else to say, informed the queen that her son was simply
dying of love. The queen, stricken with horror, rushed into the king's
presence with the news, and together they hastened to their son's
bedside.

'My boy, my dear boy!' cried the king, 'who is it you want to marry?
We will give her to you for a bride; even if she is the humblest of our
slaves. What is there in the whole world that we would not do for you?'

The prince, moved to tears at these words, drew the ring, which was an
emerald of the purest water, from under his pillow.

'Ah, dear father and mother, let this be a proof that she whom I love
is no peasant girl. The finger which that ring fits has never been
thickened by hard work. But be her condition what it may, I will marry
no other.'

The king and queen examined the tiny ring very closely, and agreed, with
their son, that the wearer could be no mere farm girl. Then the king
went out and ordered heralds and trumpeters to go through the town,
summoning every maiden to the palace. And she whom the ring fitted would
some day be queen.

First came all the princesses, then all the duchesses' daughters, and
so on, in proper order. But not one of them could slip the ring over the
tip of her finger, to the great joy of the prince, whom excitement
was fast curing. At last, when the high-born damsels had failed, the
shopgirls and chambermaids took their turn; but with no better fortune.

'Call in the scullions and shepherdesses,' commanded the prince; but the
sight of their fat, red fingers satisfied everybody.

'There is not a woman left, your Highness,' said the chamberlain; but
the prince waved him aside.

'Have you sent for "Donkey Skin," who made me the cake?' asked he, and
the courtiers began to laugh, and replied that they would not have dared
to introduce so dirty a creature into the palace.

'Let some one go for her at once,' ordered the king. 'I commanded the
presence of every maiden, high or low, and I meant it.'

The princess had heard the trumpets and the proclamations, and knew
quite well that her ring was at the bottom of it all. She, too, had
fallen in love with the prince in the brief glimpse she had had of him,
and trembled with fear lest someone else's finger might be as small as
her own. When, therefore, the messenger from the palace rode up to the
ga