The prince set to work, but every time he threw a shovelful out of the window, two shovelfuls came flying in to take its place. At last, tired and discouraged, he sat down to rest.

At that moment Yellow Lily appeared, more beautiful than ever in another gown of gold and silver, with yellow flowers in her golden hair.

"What are you trying to do, Prince of Erin?" she asked, dimpling with laughter.

"I am trying to find your great-great-grandmother's slumber-pin," was the pitiful reply.

"You are a mighty prince and my father is a mighty giant, yet you are both foolish as all men are," she said. "How do you suppose my great-great-grandmother could lose her slumber-pin in the stables? I have the slumber-pin myself; here it is. I put it in father's pocket last night so he could not wake up and catch us."

"What a useful girl you are!" cried the Prince, beside himself with joy and admiration.

All day long they visited until Yellow Lily said that she must go, for she heard her father's footsteps a league away, and he would be there in two minutes.

When the giant saw that the prince had found the slumber-pin, he was greatly surprised.

"Either my daughter, Yellow Lily, has aided you, or else it was the Evil Spirit," he muttered.

Before the prince could reply, the giant picked him up, carried him back to the kitchen, and again threw him into the tank. Then he sat down by the fire, holding the slumber-pin. Soon he began to snore like a thousand locomotives.

Up went the lid of the tank, and Yellow Lily, sweet and smiling, shouted down at the top of her voice: "Get up from your soft bed, Prince of Erin; eat the supper I have prepared, and talk as loudly as you wish, for father has gone to sleep holding great-great-grandmother's slumber-pin."

The evening they spent together was a merry one, and after Yellow Lily had joined her sisters in the watch-tower, the prince again slept in the soft bed in the corner of the kitchen. At dawn Yellow Lily again awakened him and told him to hurry back to the tank. 

As soon as the lid was closed, Yellow Lily rushed to her father's side, seized the slumber-pin, and threw it upon the floor. The giant gave a roar and fell sprawling upon the cobblestones.

 Prev. P 43/69 next