lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth and white.  I will tell you more.  Her hair was combed back from her forehead and face, and hung loose far down and all over her back.  That is not much like an old lady--is it?  Ah! but it was white almost as snow.  And although her face was so smooth, her eyes looked so wise that you could not have helped seeing she must be old.  The princess, though she could not have told you why, did think her very old indeed--quite fifty, she said to herself.  But she was rather older than that, as you shall hear.

While the princess stared bewildered, with her head just inside the door, the old lady lifted hers, and said, in a sweet, but old and rather shaky voice, which mingled very pleasantly with the continued hum of her wheel:

'Come in, my dear; come in.  I am glad to see you.'

That the princess was a real princess you might see now quite plainly; for she didn't hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without moving, as I have known some do who ought to have been princesses but were only rather vulgar little girls.  She did as she was told, stepped inside the door at once, and shut it gently behind her.

'Come to me, my dear,' said the old lady.

And again the princess did as she was told.  She approached the old lady--rather slowly, I confess--but did not stop until she stood by her side, and looked up in her face with her blue eyes and the two melted stars in them.

'Why, what have you been doing with your eyes, child?' asked the old lady.

'Crying,' answered the princess.

'Why, child?'

'Because I couldn't find my way down again.'

'But you could find your way up.'

'Not at first--not for a long time.'

'But your face is streaked like the back of a zebra.  Hadn't you a handkerchief to wipe your eyes with?'

'No.'

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