cut to pieces; for you have not sense enough to take care
of yourself. I am sorry I listened to you, and left the inn to which
the Gryphoness took me. It would have been far better to wait there
for her as she told me to do."

"Yes," said the Absolute Fool; "it would have been much better."

"Now," said the Princess, "we will go back there, and see if she has
returned."

"If we can find it," said the other, "which I very much doubt."

There were several roads at this point and, of course, they took the
wrong one. As they went on, the Absolute Fool complained bitterly
that he had left his horse behind him, and was obliged to walk.
Sometimes he stopped, and said he would go back after it; but this
the Princess sternly forbade.

* * * * *

When the Gryphoness reached the city of the Prince, it was night; but
she was not sorry for this. She did not like to show herself much in
the daytime, because so many people were frightened by her. After a
good deal of trouble, she discovered that the Prince had certainly
left the city, although his guardians did not seem to be aware of it.
They were so busy with a new palace, in part of which they were
living, that they could not be expected to keep a constant eye upon
him. In the morning, she met an old man who knew her, and was not
afraid of her, and who told her that the day before, when he was up
the river, he had seen the Prince on his white horse, riding on the
bank of the stream; and that near him, in the water, was something
which now looked like a woman, and again like a puff of mist. The
Gryphoness reflected.

"If this Prince has gone off in that way," she said to herself, "I
believe that he is the very one whom the Princess is looking for, and
that he has set out in search of her; and that creature in the water
must be our Water Sprite, whom our master has probably sent out to
discover where the Prince is going. If he had told me about this, it
would have saved much trouble. From the direction in which they were
going, I feel sure that the Water Sprite was taking the Prince to the
Land of the Lovely Lakes. She never fails to go there, if she can
possibly get an excuse. I will follow them. I suppose the Princess
will be tired, waiting at the inn; but I must know where the Prince
is, and if he is really her Prince, before I go back to her."

When the Gryphoness reached the Land of the Lovely Lakes, she
wandered all that day and the nex