ove him, and will you not go away with him?"

The child looked at the knight from head to foot, and then said in a
troubled voice--

"Since you both declare that it is Walter, I suppose I must believe it.
Ah! if only he were still as little as he was a year ago, I would go
into the wide world with him, wherever he wanted; but now, I never can.
It would be no good, whilst he is like that. If I wanted to play
hide-and-seek, as we used to do, his armour would shine, and his spurs
rattle, and I should know where he was directly. If I wanted to go to
school with him, he could not sit by me on the little benches at the
little tables. Then what could a poor child like me do for such a
stately knight? If I tried to work for him, I should burn my little
hands; if I tried to make his clothes, I should prick my little fingers;
and if I ran races with him, I should hurt my little feet. If I were a
grown-up princess, indeed, it would be a different thing."

Walter could not but feel that what Gertrude said was true. So he took
leave of them both, mounted his horse, and rode away; but the queen and
Gertrude watched him from the battlements of the castle.

He had not ridden many steps when a voice from a tree called "Walter!
Walter!" and when he looked up, there was the raven, who said--

"A year has passed since you wished to be a knight. If you have another
wish, speak, and it shall be granted; but observe, what you wished
before will then be at an end."

To these last words Walter paid no attention. The raven had no sooner
said that he might have another wish than he interrupted it, exclaiming:
"Then I wish Gertrude to be a grown-up princess!"

But even as he spoke he himself became a child again, and his horse a
hobby-horse, just as they had been a year ago. But when he looked up to
the battlements, there stood by the queen a wonderfully beautiful
princess, tall and slim and stately; and this was--his Gertrude! Then
the boy, taking his hobby-horse, went back up to the castle steps, and
wept bitterly. But the queen was sorry for him, took him in, and tried
to comfort him.

And now there was another trouble. Dearly as the Princess Gertrude and
the boy Walter loved each other, they were not so happy as they should
have been. If Walter said to her, "Come, Gertrude, and we'll run races,
and jump over the ditches," she would answer, "Oh! that would never do
for a princess; what would people say?"

If Walter said, "Come and pla