world,” replied Prince Roul. “If you had I should have asked her to be my wife before this.” “What do you mean?” asked the King. “All the princesses in the land are here.” “Ah yes, that is true,” replied the Prince, “but the most beautiful woman in the world is not a princess, as you think of them, but she is a Princess for all that. Father, she is the Princess of my heart and I cannot marry any other woman.” Then the King made the Prince tell him who she was that he loved so dearly, and when he learned Leta was a poor girl who lived in the woods close by, he was very angry and told the Prince he should never wed her. [Pg 103] [Pg 103] All the beautiful princesses were sent home, and the angry King called his servants to him and commanded that they should go to the woods and find this girl who had upset his plans for his son. “Find her and chase her out of the woods; drive her into another land where the Prince will never find her,” he told them. But the King had forgotten one very important thing, and that was his son, for he should have made him a prisoner before he gave such an order. This he did not do, and Prince Roul, who overheard what his father had said, lost no time in jumping on his horse and making his way to the woods ahead of the servants of the King. “Jump up behind me,” he said to Leta when she came out of the cabin, and away they rode, the feet of Prince Roul’s horse scarcely touching the ground as they fled. The King’s servants were not long in discovering that the Prince had outwitted them, but they gave chase and away they went through the woods, while poor frightened little Leta clung to the Prince, wondering what it was all about. On and on they rode, but to Leta clinging to[Pg 104] her lover, it seemed they flew over the ground and through the woods. She could see the bright trimmings of the servants’ coats glistening in the sun, and she knew they were gaining on them. [Pg 104] By this time Prince Roul had told her that his father, the King, had tried to make him marry a princess, but that he would marry no one but the girl he loved and that was herself.
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