she saw a face with a long beard looking at her. She drew her hand across her eyes to make her sight more clear, and the next time she looked she did see a face, and a form, too.

A little man with a misshapen back and a long white beard, the ends of which he carried over one arm, stepped from the cover of the boiling pot and hopped to the floor.

“Princess,” he said, bowing low before Cantilla, “I am an enchanted dwarf. I can give you back your once beautiful home and make your father a rich king again.

“I can cause all the rooms of the old castle to become new and filled with beautiful hangings and furniture, as they were before your father became so poor.”

Cantilla began to smile at the thought of all the luxury and comfort the dwarf pictured, and she lost sight of his ugly-looking body and[Pg 5] face for a minute, but she was brought to her senses by what the dwarf next said.

[Pg 5]

“All this will I give you, Princess Cantilla, if you will become my wife,” he said, taking a step closer to Cantilla.

“Oh no, no! I cannot do that,” said Cantilla, holding up both hands as if to ward off even the thought of such a thing.

“Wait,” said the dwarf. “Do not be so hasty, my Princess. I will come again for your reply to-night at the fountain in the garden where the honeysuckle grows.”

Before Cantilla could reply to this he swung his beard over his head and disappeared in a cloud of what looked like steam or smoke.

Cantilla looked about her and pinched herself to make sure she had not dreamed all she had just seen, and by and by she believed it was a dream—that she must have fallen asleep in her chair by the fire.

That night while she was sleeping she was awakened by feeling some one touch her on the face.

Cantilla had been awakened so many times by the little mice that overran the old castle that she only brushed her face with her hand without opening her eyes and went to sleep again.

[Pg 6]

[Pg 6]

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