Chapter VII (2)

Then, touching a stone, it became a loaf of bread. A piece of bottle glass that she found on the dungeon floor became a bottle of wine; and finding there were no vegetables, she changed a blue-bottle fly into a dish of spinach; a spider into some turnips, and a handful of earth from the floor into some salt, after which she proceeded to carve.

Having partaken sufficiently of the first course, she changed the remains of the hare into an apple tart, and the vegetables into different sorts of fruit. Thus she obtained all she required.

Having finished her supper, the princess waved her wand, and the supper table, with everything on it, chair and all, disappeared through the floor; then, seating herself by the fire, she waited for her spouse to awake.

In about three hours her worse half opened his eyes, and stretching his gigantic limbs, gazed about him in stupefied astonishment.

"Where am I?" he asked, with a yawn.

"Where thou deservest to be," answered the princess, with severity, drawing herself up to her full height. "A pretty position, I ween, for the queen's consort--drugged and cast into prison! Maybe that another time thou wilt pay more attention to my words; but the worst has not come yet. Thou art to be handed over to the malice of my two sisters. Who knows in what manner they may reek their vengeance? If thou escapest with thy life, thou wilt be fortunate.

"Prepare, then, for thou hast brought all this on thyself by despising my counsels. What! is a man like thee to be at the head of the realm? _Thou_, with thy brutish appetite, thy dense stupidity and deafness to the voice of wisdom? A pretty example to thy subjects, forsooth! Or thinkest thou that the strength of thine arm alone will suffice to govern the kingdom? I tell thee, brainless boor, that whatever your besotted notion of a king may be, it is a post that is no easy task to fill, and woe to him who aspires to the title and is not able to discharge the duties belonging to it.

"Knowest thou not futurity will judge thy action, that thy name is destined either to honour or disgrace the page of history? That a king must not only be brave, but wise, just, good, merciful, temperate?"

"Enough, O royal spouse, most august princess," answered Hans. "Enough for the present; but tell me first how I came here, and next how to get out again, and for the future I will always listen to thy counsels, though allow me to observe that it was thy will to make a king of me rather than mine own; therefore, if thou hast hit upon the wrong man, methinks the blame is thine. An I had known when I was an humble woodchopper that to be a king I must bear this splitting headache, lie in a dungeon full of rats, to be hanged perhaps on the morrow, besides having to kill so many good hearty fellows just because they happen to differ a little in opinion from your Royal Highness, I should have said, 'The devil take all the kings and kingdoms in the world; I'll e'en abide here and chop wood.'"

"Hush!" cried the princess, with asperity, "and offend not our royal ears with such clownish sentiments. It is but natural that thy rude nature should rebel against counsel that is intended for thy good. It is to be hoped, however, that with time thou mayest be brought to a right view of the great destiny that thou hast to fulfil.

"I confess that had I not been specially commanded in a dream by the queen of the fairies to take thee and raise thee to the throne, I should never of myself have chosen so clownish a helpmate."

"Well, for the matter of that," said Hans, "dreams are things that I don't often trouble my head about, as I never had one come true in my life. Many is the time I've dreamed I had my pocket full of gold, and waking in the morning, devil a groat have I found within it; but maybe it is not so with you princesses, who are a different sort of grain to us poor beggars; and perhaps fairies appear to you in dreams and tell the truth; but whether that is or is not, I know not, being no scholar."

"Well, Hans," said the princess, "thou art not far wrong in not trusting to every dream, or in believing there are certain privileged individuals to whom dreams are given as a warning, as consolation, or as prediction of good fortune; but thou oughtest no longer to doubt, after what thou hast seen and gone through; that thou thyself since thy nuptials hast been under the protection of the good fairies.

"Has not everything gone right so long as thou didst hearken to my voice; and did not thy good luck desert thee solely when thou didst refuse to listen to my warning?"

"Well, wife," said Hans, "I believe thou art about right; d---- me if I'll ever be such a fool again."

"Hush, sir!" said his spouse. "No oaths in the presence of royalty, if you please. Such language befits not the mouth of a king."

"Well, well, have it thine own way," said Hans. "I'll try to improve, only let me have a little sleep now--I am tired."

"That's right, husband mine," said the princess, seeing that her husband was more docile; "I do not quite despair of thee yet. Thou mayest be the right man after all. The fairies know better than I. Sleep, and arise to-morrow a wiser man. Yet another thing thou must bear in mind, however, thou must try to unlearn that horrid peasant's brogue of thine. Dost hear?"

"Ay, that will I, royal spouse," replied Hans, in a brogue as broad as before. Then, turning on his side, was soon fast asleep. The princess, however, slept not a wink that night; the excitement of the day and the thoughts of what might possibly occur on the morrow kept her wide awake, and thus she remained until the morning, when she was suddenly alarmed by the sound of footsteps, and four men entered.

Bertha instantly made herself invisible again. The foremost of these men advancing, and shaking Hans roughly out of his sleep, informed him that it was the pleasure of the princesses that he should be brought instantly before them. Hans started up, and would have been violent, but his chains prevented him.

"Where is the princess?" asked he, looking round him.

"What princess?" asked the man.

"The Princess Bertha--our future queen, and my lawful wife," replied Hans.

"The Princess Bertha!" exclaimed one.

"Your wife!" laughed another.

"Why, the man's mad, or else is not quite sober yet," cried a third.

"Stay," said the fourth; "it is possible he has got the dwarf princess concealed about his person. So much the better, we shall get them both together, and divide the reward between us. Let us search him."

"Ha! is that so?" said the first.

A rigid search was made on the person of Hans, but they found not the princess.

"Hold there, ruffians!" cried Hans. "Ye shall do the princess no harm. Do you hear; for, besides being your rightful queen, she is my wife."

A general laugh ensued. Hans was no less puzzled than the men themselves at her disappearance.

"Where can she be?" quoth he. "All last night she was watching beside me, like a true wife, and now----"

"Come, the fellow is dreaming still, or else trying to befool us," cried one of the men, at length. "Let us hasten with him to the princess."

Hans was then conducted into the palace, and led into an amphitheatre, where the late king was wont to listen to stage plays, singing, recitations, and such like.

The theatre was crowded, and in a conspicuous place he noticed the Princess Clothilde and her sister Carlotta.

"Welcome, Sir Peasant Knight. Welcome, Sir Woodchopper," said the princesses, mockingly.

"We have heard of your great deeds of yesterday, Sir Knight," said the Princess Clothilde. "Surely such bravery deserves a reward."

Then, turning to one of the men who accompanied Hans, she added: "Give the brave knight the reward he merits."

The men had previously been instructed how Hans was to be treated, so one of them proceeded to strip him to the waist, whilst another took from behind a column a cat-o'-nine-tails, with which he belaboured the naked shoulders of our knight with such force that he drew blood at every stroke, while the spectators applauded and the princesses laughed.

Hans bore his flogging without wincing, though his back was streaming with blood. The Princess Bertha was with her husband all the while, though invisible. She was touched at the cruel spectacle, and her blood rose in indignation against her sisters, yet she would not yet come forward to assist her husband. He had been in the wrong, and he must take the consequences of his folly. She pitied him from her heart; she admired, too, the fortitude with which he endured such pain and indignity; but she had his good in view.

She knew that, as a child is taught to know better another time by one good flogging, so her husband, who was nothing but a child in mind, must be cured by the same remedy.

"The loss of a little blood, as our leeches say, is good for the health occasionally," remarked Clothilde. "Besides, as your knighthood is well aware, a knight, whose trade it is to shed blood, must not wince if now and then a little of his own is shed."

"How thinkest thou, Sir Knight," asked Carlotta, "that a back _sanglant_ would look in thine escutcheon?"

These, and such like gibes were thrown at Hans, who treated them all with silent contempt.

At length Bertha, observing by the countenance of her spouse that he had had enough, thought it high time that the tables should be turned, and the spectators punished for their barbarity, so she whispered thus in her husband's ear:--

"I am with thee. Now that thou hast suffered the consequences of thy disobedience, take thy revenge upon thine enemies."

So saying, she touched his fetters with her wand, and they snapped.

Hans needed not this prompting. Finding himself free, his suppressed wrath having increased his natural strength to that of a Titan, he sprang up the steps of the amphitheatre, and seizing the throat of the Princess Clothilde with his right hand and that of her sister with his left, he squeezed them with such force, that it was a wonder both were not killed outright. However, they certainly would have been, had not one of the lords, whom Hans recognised as the same false lord who had invited him to his house, and afterwards drugged him, instantly interfered.

Hans left go the throats of the princesses, who fell, to all appearances, dead, and who did not recover till long after, and, seizing the sword of the false lord, which he had drawn against him, he snapped it in two across his knee, and threw the pieces into the arena. Then, seizing the lord himself by the collar and by the seat of his hose, he flung him with such violence over the heads of the people, that he fell headforemost after his sword, and his brains were dashed out.

Shouts of "Murder!" and "Treason!" were heard on all sides.

"Seize the miscreant!"

The four men who had led Hans before the princesses came forward, and would have secured him, but Hans, brandishing in one hand a piece of his broken chain of great weight, broke the skull of the foremost, the back of the second, the ribs of the third, and the shins of the fourth.

Some few others now attempted to seize Hans, but there was something so terrible in his aspect as he furiously fought his way through the crowd, knocking down one with his fist and another with his chain, that they prudently drew back, and every spectator took refuge in flight before the ungovernable fury of Hans.

Then the Princess Bertha, making herself again visible, ordered Hans to carry her to her two sisters, who had just recovered consciousness. Standing upright in the palm of her husband's hand, she addressed them thus:

"Are ye not ashamed of yourselves to treat a brave knight in this spiteful manner? Mean spirits that ye are; but ye are rightly served. Nor is this all; there is more in store for ye. Your ambitious scheming is seen through, and the good powers protect the right. Ye shall live yet to see me crowned, together with this man, whom I now declare to be my husband. The coronation will take place to-morrow, in spite of all your puny schemes. Farewell!"

The two princesses were so enraged at the words and bearing of their little sister whom they had persecuted, that they knew not what to reply, but turned red and pale by turns, stamped their feet, bit their hands, tore their hair, and screamed.

"Let us go to the arch-priest," said Bertha, to her spouse. "Go just as thou art, half-naked and bleeding. All the world shall know how these princesses treat brave knights."

So saying, the Princess Bertha left the amphitheatre in the hand of her gigantic husband, leaving her two envious sisters behind, foaming with rage.

Hans hastened through the streets, his back covered with weals and streaming with blood, towards the palace of the arch-priest. The people recognised him as the knight who had vanquished the champions of the twin princesses on the day before, and asked him how he came in such plight.

Then Hans, being instructed by Bertha, answered thus:

"Good people, you all see in me the champion of the Princess Bertha, who is ready to shed his last drop of blood for her sake; and these wounds that you see have not been inflicted in a fair fight, but by treachery. After I vanquished the two champions of the twin princesses several lords of the court came forward to congratulate me on my success, and invited me into their houses. I, contrary to the orders of our most august princess, whom I now hold before ye (cheers from the populace), and who, more wily than I, suspected treachery, contrary to her orders, I trusted too easily to false appearances, and accepted the hospitality of one of them. He invited me to his house, gave me to eat and to drink, and when I had well eaten and drunk, he drugged my cup, and cast me into a dungeon underground, where I remained all night, and was fetched away this morning, loaded with chains, only to be brought into the presence of the two usurping princesses and flogged before the whole court.

"But it pleased the good powers to loosen my chains, and I have given some few of them their deserts. Follow me, all ye that love justice, and proclaim the right of the Princess Bertha to the crown."

"Long live the Princess Bertha, our rightful queen," cried the mob.

"Prince Hans, our rightful king," cried the princess. "I here declare in the presence of all men that I am already married to this brave knight!"

Tumultuous cheering ensued this speech of the little princess, and shouts of "Long live King Hans and Queen Bertha" followed them until they arrived at the palace of the arch-priest. Hans knocked at the door. The servant who opened it started back in surprise and horror at the half-naked and bleeding figure of the visitor.

"What do you want?" he asked, rudely, as yet not noticing the princess.

"I want the arch-priest. Who else did you think I wanted," responded Hans, equally roughly.

"The arch-priest is not at home to everyone," said the menial, haughtily. "What's your business?"

"Come, let us in immediately, and don't stand prating there. I am the Princess Bertha," said the dwarf princess.

"I crave your Royal Highness's pardon," said the servant, bowing low. "I did not observe you," and he allowed our pair to enter without further opposition.

"What is all this?" exclaimed the arch-priest who came to meet them. "My little princess, with her champion naked and bleeding!"

"Holy father," said the princess, "we wish to be crowned to-morrow. See that preparations are made for the occasion."

The arch-priest bowed to the ground.

"Your Royal Highness's will is law. Is there no further obstacle to the coronation?"

"None; and if there were, I'd conquer it as I have done the rest. See that my spouse and I are crowned to-morrow in presence of all the people," said the princess.

"Your spouse!" exclaimed the arch-priest. "I knew nothing of it. He is not what he seems, then--he is of royal blood?"

"Royal blood or not, he is my lawful spouse, and he is to be crowned," said the princess, firmly.

"But, my dear princess," answered the priest, "if he is not of royal blood, how can I?"

"Enough," said Bertha. "I have the warrant of the queen of the fairies that he is to be my partner in life. Here is my certificate of marriage."

And she produced a paper five or six times as big as herself, which she handed to the priest.

The priest opened it, and glanced through it.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Then he really is of royal blood. I see. What is this paper enclosed? Ha! a pedigree." And he began to read, "Prince Hans Wurst, son of King Blut Wurst, lost in early youth and picked up by a woodcutter, with whom----"

"You see," said the princess, "how the fairies befriend me. This second paper must have been placed here by their hands, for this is the first time I have set eyes upon it. Are you content with the information therein contained?" asked the Princess Bertha.

"Perfectly, your Royal Highness," said the arch-priest, bowing.

"To-morrow, then, it must take place, father," said the princess.

"Without delay," replied the priest. "But, tell me, what on earth brings His Royal Highness Prince Hans here in this pitiable plight?"

Bertha then began to recount the misadventures of her knight and the spite of her envious sisters, the detailing of which filled the poor old priest with horror.

"But, at any rate," said he, at the conclusion of the narrative, "let the prince's wounds be healed. Send for a surgeon."

"A surgeon! Bah!" cried the princess. "Behold, sir priest, what one favoured by the fairies can do," and thus saying, she touched her husband's back with her wand, and it instantly healed so that none could see even the slightest scratch.

"Gramercy!" quoth the arch-priest; "I never before beheld such a miracle. Thou art indeed favoured of the higher powers."

"Does that surprise thee, holy father? Behold another wonder," said Bertha, and she touched the back of Hans a second time with her wand, and instantly her semi-nude champion was covered from head to foot in an elegant royal dress, composed of a crimson velvet tunic, half-way to the knee, and trimmed with ermine, and silken hose of a buff colour.

A gold-hilted sword, in the form of a cross, hung by his side, within a bejewelled scabbard, likewise a dagger. A chain of massive gold about his neck, and a graceful barrette, with a white ostrich feather, which was fastened by a huge diamond. The arch-priest started back several paces, rubbed his eyes, and, looking first at the princess and then at Hans, and then at the princess again, he took her in his hand, and whispered in her ear that he hoped it was not witchcraft, and being assured by Bertha that it was not, he smiled, and congratulated Prince Hans on his improved appearance.

Hans, suddenly discovering that he had undergone a change, called for a mirror, and was shown into another chamber, where there stood one large enough for him to look at himself at full length. Our prince began to admire himself, and to cut all sorts of capers, at which the arch-priest laughed heartily; but Bertha reproved her spouse for his levity, and told him such antics did not become a king.

The prince immediately ceased his tricks, and taking leave of the arch-priest respectfully, left his palace with his little wife in the breast of his tunic.

As he opened the palace door, he saw standing at the gate his own charger, gaily bedizened. The animal had been sent to await him at the arch-priest's palace by the fairies. Hans mounted, and proceeded to show himself to everyone through the streets of the city, while the crowd shouted, "Long live King Hans and Queen Bertha!"

Now, Bertha knew her twin sisters too well not to suspect them of treachery up to the very last.

"It is certain," said she to herself, "that they have sent spies after us. They will not rest until Hans, at least, is killed."

Looking round in the crowd, she spied a man whose face pleased her not, and who glanced furtively at Hans. She observed, too, that he carried a long rope with a slip-knot over his arm. Her natural penetration told her that danger would proceed from that quarter, so, touching her husband's neck with her wand, she said:

"Be as hard as iron and as immovable as a rock."

They rode on together till they came to a large square, when suddenly the man with the rope, watching his opportunity, threw the cord over the heads of the people, so that the slip-knot fixed itself round the throat of Hans, and the man pulled with all his might and main to throttle him and to drag him from his seat; but instead of accomplishing his object, the rope did no more harm to Han's neck than had it been the trunk of a tree, while the horse and his rider proceeded as before, dragging the man behind after them; nor could he leave go the rope, for the princess had wrought a charm on him, and thus he was dragged through the city in the sight of all men, hooted and pelted by the crowd as he was dragged along.

As for Hans, he felt the rope no more than had it been a spider's web. The report of the strength of Han's neck spread throughout all the land, and all declared that that alone was sufficient to qualify him for the crown, accordingly, on the following day great preparations were already made for the coronation, which was to take place in the cathedral of the town.

The doors of the church were crammed with the equipages of all the lords and ladies in the land, amongst which were the carriages of the Princesses Clothilde and Carlotta, who had arrived, each with an escort of armed men, to prevent the coronation of their sister, but the mob was so violently in favour of the Princess Bertha, that the escorts were beaten back. The little princess, however, gave orders that her sisters were to be admitted, so the twin princesses took their seats to witness the ceremony.

Now, a man had been bribed by them to be close to the person of the prince all the time, and the moment the crown was being placed upon his head to stab him in the back; but Bertha, still suspicious of treachery, looked around her and saw the man, who was just in the act of assassinating her husband, when, waving her wand in time, she converted his dagger into a venomous serpent, which twisted itself round his body, and bit him that he died.

Great was the uproar and surprise at this scene, and the crowd were ready to tear the twin princesses to pieces; but the arch-priest commanded them to forbear, and the ceremony proceeded without opposition.

Suddenly a soft music was heard throughout the cathedral, and a perfume as of incense arose. Then a sunbeam from one of the upper windows in the church revealed an innumerable multitude of little fairies, two of which carried a little crown between them, just big enough for the head of the pigmy queen.

The multitude was struck with awe and the two sisters filled with fury at the sight; but the ceremony passed off quietly. Nevertheless, the twin princesses, dreading the mob, stepped hastily into their respective carriages, and drove back to the palace.

When King Hans and Queen Bertha drove off in their carriage, which, by the way, was made by the fairies themselves for the occasion, the mob was half-blinded by the brilliancy of the jewels with which it was inlaid, and our new sovereigns were cheered by the crowd till they arrived at the palace door.

Now, the two princesses, instead of yielding up the palace to the rightful owners, had ordered the door to be barricaded and entrance refused to the royal pair, which, when Bertha discovered, she immediately waved her wand in front of the palace, and changed it into a prison filled with gloomy cells, and the gay clothes of the people within into the squalid garments of prisoners, while the golden bracelets of the princesses became manacles for their wrists, and their garters fetters for their feet.

Then, waving her wand in the direction of the prison in which her husband had been confined, which stood not far off, it became a magnificent palace, equal, if not superior, in grandeur to that which she erected upon the ruins of the wizard's castle, so that all wondered, and shouted, "Welcome to Queen Bertha, and down with the twin princesses!"

The man who had attempted the life of Prince Hans with his lasso on the day before was publicly hanged with his own rope on the roof of the prison where the two princesses now languished as an example to all rebels.

After the wicked princesses had been imprisoned for a week the tiny queen released them on condition that they should flee the country and not show their faces again. The sisters heard their sentence in sullen silence, and quitted the country shortly afterwards, amid the curses of the crowd, and established themselves in a foreign land, where, out of spite, they gave themselves over to witchcraft, and leagued with the queen of the witches, who was also exiled there, to work all sorts of spells upon their sister from afar; but they all failed, as the pigmy queen was too powerfully protected by the fairies.

King Hans grew in wisdom every day under the sage counsel of his spouse, till at length his subjects bestowed on him the name of "The wisest and the bravest king living."

In proportion as Hans' intelligence and good manners improved, grew the love of Bertha for her husband. They soon knew how to appreciate and respect each other, till at length there was not a more loving couple in the whole world.

About a year after King Hans and Queen Bertha had ascended the throne a war broke out between his and a neighbouring country. The latter was the same land where the wicked princesses had fled into exile, and this was to be the seat of war.

One day, as the queen was seated in the boudoir of the palace in a pensive attitude, while her husband was putting on his armour, previous to departing for the war, she was startled by a sound of chattering, screeching, and the fluttering of wings. As she was about to ring the bell for the servant to inquire the meaning of this strange noise the door opened, and an ape and crow entered, followed by a large spider, which, making towards the queen and bowing low, cried out, "A boon, a boon! O gracious queen, according to thy promise."

And immediately the little queen recognised the ape that had escaped with her from the hands of the showman and carried her to the top of a tree, the crow that had carried her down again and left her on the banks of a stream, and the spider that had saved her life by catching her in its web and carrying her safely to the bottom of the precipice, when her cruel sister Clothilde thought to rid herself for ever of her rival by precipitating her into the lake below. She remembered that she had promised a boon to all three when she came to be queen.

"A boon, a boon!" chattered the monkey.

"A boon, a boon!" screeched the crow.

"A boon, a boon!" whispered the spider, whose voice was less strong than the other two, being an insect.

"What boon do ye ask?" demanded her majesty.

"Change us to our proper forms again!" cried all at once. "We have heard that thou possessest a fairy wand. Disenchant us, O queen, and give us back our natural forms."

Queen Bertha then waving her wand over the head of each, they suddenly resumed their respective shapes. The ape and the spider became two handsome youths, while the crow took the form of a comely and dignified matron in the habiliments of a queen. Each of the two youths recognised the other, though after a lapse of many years, as his lost brother, and rushed into each other's arms.

The venerable lady who had hitherto figured as a crow, but who was neither more nor less than a queen herself, recognised in these two youths her long lost sons, and they, in their turn, recognised the late crow as their mother, and fell upon her neck and kissed her. The old queen wept for joy, and knew not how to thank Bertha for what she had done.

"O favoured of the fairies!" pleaded the mother of the two princes, "think me not bold if I further trespass on thy benevolence and crave another boon."

"Ask, and it is granted," quoth the smaller queen.

"I have yet another son and I know not what has become of him--my eldest boy--also three daughters, whom the queen witch has metamorphosed into a bat, a toad, and an owl. Let me set eyes again on my eldest son, if he, indeed, be living, and, prithee, O gracious queen, disenchant my daughters."

"It shall be done," responded the pigmy queen, and waving her wand, there immediately flew through the window, which was open, an owl and a bat, the owl bearing in its beak a toad by the leg, which it immediately dropped on entering the royal boudoir, and the three stood in a row before Bertha.

"Obnoxious beings," said the pigmy queen, "resume your respective forms."

So saying, she waved her wand over each, and they were suddenly converted into three beautiful maidens, who immediately recognising their mother and their two brothers, fell into their arms and devoured them with kisses.

At the same moment that the three unsightly objects made their appearance at the window the door opened, and in walked--who? Hans, clad in complete armour, and the old queen recognised her lost eldest son. Hans remained stupefied at the group before him; then, when everything was explained, he wept upon his mother's neck, and embraced his brothers and sisters.

But Hans had little time to lose; his army was about to march, so taking a hasty farewell of his relatives, he placed his diminutive spouse within his helmet, as was his wont, and mounted his charger. His two younger brothers, Otto and Oscar, were determined to follow him to battle, so Queen Bertha changed two black pigs that had strayed into the palace garden, and were uprooting the plants, into two fiery war horses, nobly caparisoned, and the three brothers started for the war, while their mother and three sisters waved their handkerchiefs after them until they were out of sight, and uttered prayers for their safe return.

Now, this war had been brought about by the evil spells of the queen witch and Bertha's two malicious sisters, who, wishing to avenge themselves on their pigmy sister, caused the monarch in whose country they lived to pick a quarrel with King Hans, which should lead to a war, by which they hoped to be the gainers. But Hans and Bertha were in favour with the good fairies, and the luck was, as usual, on their side.

The foreign monarch's city was besieged, and many put to the sword. The king himself, together with the witch queen and the two wicked sisters were taken prisoners. The witch queen was burnt alive publicly, as a punishment for her many sins, and the twin sisters imprisoned for life.

Queen Bertha was naturally of a benevolent disposition, and would have pardoned her sisters, but her prudence conquered this feeling, and she deemed it expedient to put it out of their power to do harm to anyone by shutting them up in prison, where, after languishing for some years, they died still impenitent.

After the death of the witch queen the spell which she had wrought upon Bertha while yet unborn was broken, and the pigmy queen took suddenly to growing, and increased each day six inches in height, till she reached the stature of an ordinary full-grown woman.

She preserved her surpassing beauty till her death, and lived to bless her husband with a family of twelve children.

Hans' two brothers returned unhurt from battle, and lived with their mother and sisters in the splendid palace that Bertha had raised on the spot where had stood the wizard's castle.

King Hans lived to a good old age, and died a good man and wise monarch.

* * * * *

It would be in vain to describe the enthusiasm that prevailed as Helen concluded her fairy tale. Any story that partook at all of the marvellous was sure to meet with thorough appreciation, whoever might be the teller; but when the sunny dreams of fairyland were shaped into words by lips so rosy as those of our host's daughter, Methuselah himself might have felt his blood boil in his veins.

All the old fogies of the club felt their youth suddenly restored to them, and it was all they could do to keep themselves from falling prostrate at the feet of the fair story-teller. As for our artist, he had lost his heart long ago. Here was a pretty to do! As for Helen, I'm afraid that she had caught the complaint. What was to be done? Well, never mind at present; perhaps the dart may not have struck very deep.

But here comes our host, who, roused by the boisterous cheering of the guests, has come to call away his daughter to her meal. And high time, too, unless he wishes all their heads to be turned by this bewitching enchantress.

The eulogiums on Helen's beauty, manners, and powers for story-telling lasted until dinner time, and such an impression had her story and manner of telling it made upon all, that no one felt inclined either to relate or listen to another, and the club actually retired to rest that evening without a story.