rincess. 'Tell me what it is,
and it shall be done.'

So at last her friend told her.

'If the king, your father, would make me his queen I would stay,' she
said; 'but that he would never do.'

'Oh, yes! _that_ is easy enough!' cried the princess, delighted to
think that, after all, they need not be parted. And she ran off to
find her father, and beg him to marry the lady at once. He had done
everything she asked, and she was quite certain he would do it.

'What is it, my daughter?' he asked, when he saw her. 'You have been
crying--are you not happy?'

'Father,' she said, 'I have come to ask you to marry the
countess'--(for that was the lady's real title)--'if you do not she
will leave us, and then I shall be as lonely as before. You have never
refused me what I have asked before, do not refuse me now.'

The king turned quite pale when he heard this. He did not like the
countess, and so, of course, he did not wish to marry her; besides, he
still loved his dead wife.

'No, that I cannot do, my child,' he said at last.

At these words the princess began to cry once more, and the tears ran
down her cheeks so fast, and she sobbed so bitterly, that her father
felt quite miserable too. He remembered the promise he had given
always to do what his daughter asked him and in the end he gave way,
and promised to marry the countess. The princess at once was all
smiles, and ran away to tell the good news.

Soon after, the wedding was celebrated with great festivities, and the
countess became queen; but, in spite of all the joy and merriment that
filled the palace, the king looked pale and sad, for he was certain
that ill would come of the marriage. Sure enough, in a very short time
the queen's manner towards the princess began to change. She was
jealous of her because she, instead of her own daughter, was heir to
the throne, and very soon she could no longer hide her thoughts.
Instead of speaking kindly and lovingly as before, her words became
rough and cruel, and once or twice she even slapped the princess's
face.

The king was very unhappy at seeing his dearly loved daughter suffer,
and at last she became so wretched that he could no longer bear it.
Calling her to him one day he said:

'My daughter, you are no longer merry as you should be, and I fear
that it is the fault of your step-mother. It will be better for you to
live with her no longer; therefore I have built you a castle on the
island in the lake, and that