the swan's plumage into a thousand pieces, so that the
feathers whirled about like a snow-storm; and away they flew--the two
faithless princesses!"

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS LEFT IN THE MARSH.]

"Why, that is terrible!" said stork-mamma. "I can't bear to hear any
more of it. But now tell me what happened next."

"The princess wept and lamented aloud. Her tears fell fast on the
alder stump, and the latter moved; for it was not a regular alder
stump, but the marsh king--he who lives and rules in the depths of the
moor! I myself saw it--how the stump of the tree turned round, and
ceased to be a tree stump; long thin branches grew forth from it like
arms. Then the poor child was terribly frightened, and sprang up to
flee away. She hurried across to the green slimy ground; but that
cannot even carry me, much less her. She sank immediately, and the
alder stump dived down too; and it was he who drew her down. Great
black bubbles rose up out of the moor-slime, and the last trace of
both of them vanished when these burst. Now the princess is buried in
the wild moor, and never more will she bear away a flower to Egypt.
Your heart would have burst, mother, if you had seen it."

"You ought not to tell me anything of the kind at such a time as
this," said stork-mamma; "the eggs might suffer by it. The princess
will find some way of escape; some one will come to help her. If it
had been you or I, or one of our people, it would certainly have been
all over with us."

"But I shall go and look every day to see if anything happens," said
stork-papa.

And he was as good as his word.

A long time had passed, when at last he saw a green stalk shooting up
out of the deep moor-ground. When it reached the surface, a leaf
spread out and unfolded itself broader and broader; close by it, a bud
came out. And one morning, when stork-papa flew over the stalk, the
bud opened through the power of the strong sunbeams, and in the cup of
the flower lay a beautiful child--a little girl--looking just as if
she had risen out of the bath. The little one so closely resembled the
princess from Egypt, that at the first moment the stork thought it
must be the princess herself; but, on second thoughts, it appeared
more probable that it must be the daughter of the princess and of the
marsh king; and that also explained her being placed in the cup of the
water-lily.

"But she cannot possibly be left lying there," thought stork-papa;
"and in my nest t