rself
proved too strong for her, and she was forced to take the path that led
to the House of Dead Leaves.

Scarcely had her feet touched the threshold than Grimace appeared. 'So
here you are at last, Minon-Minette! I have been watching for you a long
time, and my trap was ready for you from the beginning. Come here, my
darling! I will teach you to make war on my friends! Things won't turn
out exactly as you fancied. What you have got to do now is to go on
your knees to the king and crave his pardon, and before he consents to
a peace you will have to implore him to grant you the favour of becoming
his wife. Meanwhile you will have to be my servant.'

From that day the poor princess was put to the hardest and dirtiest
work, and each morning something more disagreeable seemed to await her.
Besides which, she had no food but a little black bread, and no bed but
a little straw. Out of pure spite she was sent in the heat of the day to
look after the geese, and would most likely have got a sunstroke if she
had not happened to pick up in the fields a large fan, with which she
sheltered her face. To be sure, a fan seems rather an odd possession for
a goose girl, but the princess did not think of that, and she forgot
all her troubles when, on opening the fan to use it as a parasol, out
tumbled a letter from her lover. Then she felt sure that the fairy had
not forgotten her, and took heart.

When Grimace saw that Minon-Minette still managed to look as white as
snow, instead of being burnt as brown as a berry, she wondered what
could have happened, and began to watch her closely. The following day,
when the sun was at its highest and hottest, she noticed her draw a fan
from the folds of her dress and hold it before her eyes. The fairy, in a
rage, tried to snatch it from her, but the princess would not let it go.
'Give me that fan at once!' cried Grimace.

'Never while I live!' answered the princess, and, not knowing where
it would be safest, placed it under her feet. In an instant she felt
herself rising from the ground, with the fan always beneath her, and
while Grimace was too much blinded by her fury to notice what was going
on the princess was quickly soaring out of her reach.

All this time Souci had been wandering through the world with his
precious thread carefully fastened round him, seeking every possible
and impossible place where his beloved princess might chance to be. But
though he sometimes found traces of her,