stolen it; but I dare say you will be able to return it to the
princess.'

So that evening the man took the ring to the palace and gave it to
his daughter, who was the princess's favourite slave, and the girl
gave it to her mistress. When the princess saw it she uttered a cry of
joy.

'It is the ring I gave my betrothed!' she said. 'Take me to him at
once.'

The bath-keeper thought it strange that the princess should be
betrothed to a blind beggar, but he did as she bade him, and when she
saw the prince she cried:

'At last you have come! The year is over, and I thought you were dead.
Now we will be married immediately.' And she went home and told the
king that he was to send an escort to bring her betrothed to the
palace. Naturally the king was rather surprised at the sudden arrival
of the prince; but when he heard that he was blind he was very much
annoyed.

'I cannot have a blind person to succeed me,' he said. 'It is
perfectly absurd!'

But the princess had had her own way all her life, and in the end the
king gave way as he had always done. The prince was taken to the
palace with much ceremony and splendour; but in spite of this the king
was not contented. Still, it could not be helped, and really it was
time the princess was married, though she looked as young as ever.
There had been hundreds of knights and princes who had begged her to
bestow her hand upon them, but she would have nothing to do with
anyone; and now she had taken it into her head to marry this blind
prince, and nobody else would she have.

* * * * *

One evening, as it was fine, the prince and princess went into the
garden, and sat down under a tree.

Two ravens were perched on a bush near by, and the prince, who could
understand bird language, heard one of them say: 'Do you know that it
is Midsummer-eve to-night?'

'Yes,' said the other.

'And do you know that part of the garden which is known as the
Queen's Bed?'

'Yes.'

'Well, perhaps you don't know this, that whoever has bad eyes, or no
eyes at all, should bathe his eye-sockets in the dew that falls there
to-night, because then he will get his sight back. Only he must do it
between twelve and one o'clock.'

That was good news for the prince and princess to hear, and the young
man begged the princess to lead him to the place called the Queen's
Bed, which was the little plot of grass where the queen used often to
lie down and take her midday