y laughter. "Isn't it beautiful
nonsense, father? And isn't Stefan a dear lad? And, father, I'm awfully
hungry! Please have some food sent in at once and Stefan must stay and
eat with me."

So the Tsar had great trays of food brought in: roast birds and
vegetables and wheaten bread and many kinds of little cakes and honey
and milk and fruit. And Stefan and the Princess ate and made merry and
the Tsar joined them and even the first lady-in-waiting took one little
cake which she crumbled in her handkerchief in a most refined manner.

Then Stefan rose to go and the Tsar said to him:

"Stefan, I will reward you richly. You have made the Princess laugh and
besides you have not insisted on her marrying you. You are a fine lad
and I shall never forget you."

"But, father," the Princess said, "I don't want Stefan to go. He amuses
me and I like him. He said I needn't marry him unless I wanted to but,
father, I think I want to."

"Wow! Wow!" the Tsar roared. "What! My daughter marry the son of a
farmer!"

"Now, father," the Princess said, "it's no use your _wow-wowing_ at me
and you know it isn't. If I can't marry Stefan I won't marry any one.
And if I don't marry any one I'm going to stop eating again. So that's
that!" And still holding Stefan's hand, the Princess turned her face to
the wall.

What could the poor Tsar do? At first he fumed and raged but as usual
after a day or two he came around to the Princess's way of thinking. In
fact it soon seemed to him that Stefan had been his choice from the
first and when one of his councilors remarked: "Then, Your Majesty,
there's no use sending word to the neighboring kings that the Princess
has reached a marriageable age and would like to look over their sons,"
the Tsar flew into an awful temper and roared:

"Wow! Wow! You blockhead! Neighboring kings, indeed, and their
good-for-nothing sons! No, siree! The husband I want for my daughter is
an honest farmer lad who knows how to work and how to play! That's the
kind of son-in-law we need in this kingdom!"

So Stefan and the little Princess were married and from that day the
castle was no longer gloomy but rang with laughter and merriment.
Presently the people of the kingdom, following the example of their
rulers, were laughing, too, and cracking jokes and, strange to say, they
soon found they were working all the better for their jollity.

Laughter grew so fashionable that even Mihailo and Jakov were forced to
take it up.