said, "I would that I could find this maiden for you!
It breaks my heart to see you sad and unhappy! But I'm sorry to tell you
that I hear she was a Vila and not a human maiden at all. You know how
mysteriously she came, and now she's gone just as mysteriously. So put
the thought of her out of your mind and I'm sure you'll soon find a
human maiden who is worthy of your love. Come here, my daughter, and
tell the Prince how sorry you are that he is in grief."

But the sight of the Chamberlain's ugly daughter only made the Prince
long the more for the beautiful girl who was gone.

She meantime had found refuge in the hut of an old woman who had heard
her groan in the early dawn when she lay among the nettles and had taken
compassion on her.

"You may stay with me until you're well," the old woman said.

The girl was young and healthy and in a day or two had recovered the ill
treatment she had suffered at the hands of the Blackamoor.

"Won't you let me live with you awhile, granny?" she said to the old
woman. "I'll cook and scrub and work and you won't have to regret the
little I eat."

"Can you cook? Because if you can perhaps you know a dish that would
tempt the appetite of our poor young Prince," the old woman said. "You
know the poor boy has had a terrible disappointment in love and he
refuses to eat. The heralds were out this morning proclaiming that the
King would richly reward any one who could prepare a dish that would
tempt the Prince's appetite."

"Granny!" the girl said, "I know a wonderful way to prepare beans! Let
me cook a dish of beans and do you carry them to the palace."

So the girl cooked the beans and placed them prettily in a dish and on
one side of the dish she put a tiny little ringlet of her own golden
hair.

"If he sees the hair," she thought to herself, "he'll know the beans are
from me."

And that's exactly what happened. To please his father the Prince had
consented to look at every dish as it came. He had already looked at
hundreds of them before the old woman arrived and turned away from them
all. Then the old woman came. As she passed before the Prince, she
lifted the cover of the dish, held it towards him, and curtsied. The
Prince was just about to turn away when he saw the tiny ringlet of hair.

"Oh!" he said. "Wait a minute! Those beans look good!"

To the King's delight he took the dish out of the old woman's hand,
examined it carefully, and when no one was looking slipped t