Crash! went the blue glass, and the peasant saw an opening large enough for him to enter.

He was about to do so, leaving the enchanted horse outside, when he heard another crash—the enchanted horse was following him in; it had broken a place large enough for both of them to enter.

The mouse was crouching in one corner of the room and the peasant picked it up carefully and put it in his pocket.

The horse went to the spot where the old witch had disappeared, and tapped on the glass floor three times with one of his front feet, and up from the floor came the old witch. But this time she was not laughing; she looked frightened, and trembled so she had to lean on her cane to keep from falling.

The enchanted horse took her by the dress and shook her three times, and out from her pocket fell a black bean with a white spot on it.

As it dropped the old witch screamed and fell on the floor, and the horse picked up the bean and swallowed it.

The peasant all this time was standing watching all the strange happenings, not daring to move for fear of breaking the spell, and wondering what would happen next.

[Pg 46]

[Pg 46]

As the horse swallowed the bean he seemed to shrink away from sight and a blue mist filled the room. When it cleared the peasant beheld a handsome young man where the horse had stood, and where the witch had been was a deep hole.

“Did she fall into it?” asked the peasant, not knowing what else to say.

“No; in that hole we will find the magic charm that will restore the Princess to her own form,” said the young man. “The witch disappeared in the blue mist.”

“Let us hurry and find the magic charm,” he said, dropping into the hole, and the peasant followed him.

There was a ladder down which they climbed, and down they went until it seemed they would never reach the bottom.

But at last their feet touched something firm and soft and they stood in a beautiful room on a carpet of blue velvet.

The room was hung with velvet the color of sapphire, and the chairs were of burnished gold with velvet seats.

A gold fountain played in the middle of the room and the water 

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