“No fear of his wanting to kiss her now!”

That night the prince did find the dell, but no princess came.  A little after midnight he passed near the lovely little house where she lived, and there he overheard her waiting-women talking about her.  They seemed in great distress.  They were saying that the princess had wandered into the woods and was lost.  The prince didn’t know, of course, what it meant, but he did understand that the princess was lost somewhere, and he started off to find her.  After he had gone a long way without finding her, he came to a big old tree, and there he thought he would light a fire to show her the way if she should happen to see it.

As the blaze flared up, he suddenly saw a little black heap on the other side of the tree.  Somebody was lying there.  He ran to the spot, his heart beating with hope.  But when he lifted the cloak which was huddled about the form, he saw at once that it was not Daylight.  A pinched, withered, white, little old woman’s face shone out at him.  The hood was drawn close down over her forehead, the eyes were closed, and as the prince lifted the cloak, the old woman’s lips moaned faintly.

“Oh, poor mother,” said the prince, “what is the matter?” The old woman only moaned again.  The prince lifted her and carried her over to the warm fire, and rubbed her hands, trying to find out what was the matter.  But she only moaned, and her face was so terribly strange and white that the prince’s tender heart ached for her.  Remembering his little flask, he poured some of his liquid between her lips, and then he thought the best thing he could do was to carry her to the princess’s house, where she could be taken care of.

As he lifted the poor little form in his arms, two great tears stole out from the old woman’s closed eyes and ran down her wrinkled cheeks.

“Oh, poor, poor mother,” said the prince pityingly; and he stooped and kissed her withered lips.

As he walked through the forest with the old woman in his arms, it seemed to him that she grew heavier and heavier; he could hardly carry her at all; and then she stirred, and at last he was obliged to set her down, to rest.  He meant to lay her on the ground.  But the old woman stood upon her feet.

And then the hood fell back from her face.  As she looked up at the prince, the first, long, yellow ray of the rising sun struck full upon her,—­and it was the Princess Daylight!  Her hair was golden as the sun itself, and her eyes as blue as the flower that grows in the corn.

The prince fell on his knees before her.  But she gave him her hand and made him rise.

“You kissed me when I was an old woman,” said the princess, “I’ll kiss you now that I am a young princess.”  And she did.

And then she turned her face toward the dawn.

“Dear Prince,” she said, “is that the sun?”

THE SAILOR MAN[1]