o the boat all the cats "mewed" three
times for good luck, and the prince waved his hat three times, and the
little boat sped over the waters all through the night as brightly and
as swiftly as a shooting star. In the first flush of the morning it
touched the strand. The prince jumped out and went on and on, up hill
and down dale, until he came to the giant's castle. When the hounds
saw him they barked furiously, and bounded towards him to tear him to
pieces. The prince flung the cakes to them, and as each hound swallowed
his cake he fell dead. The prince then struck his shield three times
with the sword which he had brought from the palace of the little white
cat.

When the giant heard the sound he cried out:

"Who comes to challenge me on my wedding-day?"

The dwarfs went out to see, and, returning, told him it was a prince who
challenged him to battle.

The giant, foaming with rage, seized his heaviest iron club, and rushed
out to the fight. The fight lasted the whole day, and when the sun went
down the giant said:

"We have had enough of fighting for the day. We can begin at sunrise
to-morrow."

"Not so," said the prince. "Now or never; win or die."

"Then take this," cried the giant, as he aimed a blow with all his force
at the prince's head; but the prince, darting forward like a flash of
lightning, drove his sword into the giant's heart, and, with a groan,
he fell over the bodies of the poisoned hounds.

When the dwarfs saw the giant dead they began to cry and tear their
hair. But the prince told them they had nothing to fear, and he bade
them go and tell the Princess Eileen he wished to speak with her. But
the princess had watched the battle from her window, and when she saw
the giant fall she rushed out to greet the prince, and that very night
he and she and all the dwarfs and harpers set out for the Palace of the
Silver River, which they reached the next morning, and from that day to
this there never has been a gayer wedding than the wedding of the Prince
of the Silver River and the Princess Eileen; and though she had diamonds
and pearls to spare, the only jewel she wore on her wedding-day was the
brooch which the prince had brought her from the Palace of the Little
White Cat in the far-off seas.

PRINCESS FINOLA AND THE DWARF

A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut in the midst of a
bare, brown, lonely moor an old woman and a young girl. The old woman
was withered, sour-tempere