be a great ball, to which I must go.'

And his mother answered, 'Go and dance, and enjoy yourself.'

Suddenly a voice came from under the table, where the bear had rolled
itself, as was its wont: 'Let me come to the ball; I, too, would like to
dance.'

But the only answer the prince made was to give the bear a kick, and to
drive it out of the room.

In the evening the prince set off for the ball. As soon as he had
started, the bear came to the queen and implored to be allowed to go to
the ball, saying that she would hide herself so well that no one would
know she was there. The kind-hearted queen could not refuse her.

Then the bear ran to her barrow, threw off her bear's skin, and touched
it with the magic wand that the witch had given her. In a moment the
skin was changed into an exquisite ball dress woven out of moon-beams,
and the wheel-barrow was changed into a carriage drawn by two prancing
steeds. Stepping into the carriage the princess drove to the grand
entrance of the palace. When she entered the ball-room, in her wondrous
dress of moon-beams, she looked so lovely, so different from all the
other guests, that everyone wondered who she was, and no one could tell
where she had come from.

From the moment he saw her, the prince fell desperately in love with
her, and all the evening he would dance with no one else but the
beautiful stranger.

When the ball was over, the princess drove away in her carriage at full
speed, for she wished to get home in time to change her ball dress into
the bear's skin, and the carriage into the wheel-barrow, before anyone
discovered who she was.

The prince, putting spurs into his horse, rode after her, for he was
determined not to let her out of his sight. But suddenly a thick mist
arose and hid her from him. When he reached his home he could talk to
his mother of nothing else but the beautiful stranger with whom he had
danced so often, and with whom he was so much in love. And the bear
beneath the table smiled to itself, and muttered: 'I am the beautiful
stranger; oh, how I have taken you in!'

The next evening there was a second ball, and, as you may believe, the
prince was determined not to miss it, for he thought he would once more
see the lovely girl, and dance with her and talk to her, and make her
talk to him, for at the first ball she had never opened her lips.

And, sure enough, as the music struck up the first dance, the beautiful
stranger entered the room, l