with feathery plumes and irises
whose flower is like a human glance between the blades of swords. Every
morning a white mist rises over the lake which shines like armour under
the midday sun. But none must approach it for in it dwell the nixies who
lure passers by into their crystal abodes."

At this moment the bell of the Hermitage was heard.

"Let us dismount," said the Duchess, "and walk to the chapel. It was
neither on elephants nor camels that the wise men of the East approached
the manger."

They heard the hermit's mass. A hideous old crone covered with rags
knelt beside the Duchesss, who on leaving the church offered her holy
water.

"Accept it, good mother," she said.

George was amazed.

"Do you not know," said the Duchess, "that in the poor you honour the
chosen of our Lord Jesus Christ? A beggar such as this as well as the
good Duke of Rochesnoires held you at the font when you were baptized;
and your little sister, Honey-Bee, also had one of these poor creatures
as godmother."

The old crone who seemed to have guessed the boy's thoughts leaned
towards him.

"Fair prince," she cried mockingly, "may you conquer as many kingdoms as
I have lost. I was the queen of the Island of Pearls and the Mountains
of Gold; each day my table was served with fourteen different kinds of
fish, and a negro page bore my train."

"And by what misfortune have you lost your islands and your mountains,
good woman?" asked the Duchess.

"I vexed the dwarfs, and they carried me far away from my dominions."

"Are the dwarfs so powerful?" George asked.

"As they live in the earth," the old woman answered, "they know the
virtue of precious stones, they work in metals, and they unseal the
hidden sources of the springs."

"And what did you do to vex them?" asked the Duchess.

"On a December night," said the old woman, "one of them came to ask
permission to prepare a great midnight banquet in the kitchen of
the castle, which, vaster than a chapter-house, was furnished
with casseroles, frying-pans, earthen saucepans, kettles, pans,
portable-ovens, gridirons, boilers, dripping-pans, dutch-ovens,
fish-kettles, copper-pans, pastry-moulds, copper-jugs, goblets of
gold and silver, and mottled wood, not to mention iron roasting-jacks,
artistically forged, and the huge black cauldron which hung from the
pothook. He promised neither to disturb nor to damage anything. I
refused his request, and he disappeared muttering vague threats.