ll, and Moufette, who had hitherto known only dragons and
serpents, was not backward in according him her share of praise. Prince
Moufy was deeply in love with her, and not a day passed but he showed
her some fresh attention in the hope of gaining her favour. In due
course he offered himself as a suitor, informing the king and queen that
his realm was of a richness and extent that might well claim their
favourable consideration.

The king replied that Moufette should make her own choice of husband,
for his only wish was to please her and make her happy. With this answer
the prince was well satisfied, for he was already aware that the
princess was not indifferent to him. He offered her his hand, and she
declared that if he were not to be her husband, then no other man should
be. Prince Moufy threw himself in rapture at her feet, and exacted,
lover-like, a promise that she would keep her word with him.

The prince and princess were betrothed, and Prince Moufy then returned
to his own realm, in order to make preparations for the marriage.
Moufette wept much at his going, for she was oppressed by an
inexplicable presentiment of evil. The prince likewise was much
downcast, and the queen, noticing this, gave him a portrait of her
daughter with an injunction to curtail the splendour of his preparations
rather than allow his return to be delayed. The prince was nothing loth
to obey her behest, and promised to adopt a course which so well
consulted his own happiness.

The princess amused herself with music during his absence, for in a few
months she had learned to play exceedingly well.

One day, when she was in the queen's apartment, the king rushed in.
Tears were streaming down his face as he took his daughter in his arms
and cried aloud: 'Alas, my child! O wretched father! O miserable king!'
Sobs choked his utterance, and he could say no more.

Greatly alarmed, the queen and princess asked him what had happened, and
at last he got out that there had just arrived an enormously tall giant,
who professed to be an envoy of the dragon of the lake; and that in
pursuance of the promise which the king had given in exchange for
assistance in fighting the monsters, the dragon demanded that he should
give up the princess, as he desired to make her into a pie for dinner.
The king added that he had bound himself by solemn oaths to give the
dragon what he asked--and in the days of which we are telling no one
ever broke his word.

Th