wife for fun, but never your wife for good. The
moment you asked me to marry you I was reminded of Francoeur, who when
I was on earth used to amuse me by telling me the most ridiculous
stories."

At these words King Loc turned his head away, but not so soon but that
Honey-Bee saw the tears in his eyes. Then Honey-Bee was grieved because
she had pained him.

"Little King Loc," she said to him, "I love you for the little King Loc
you are; and if you make me laugh as Francoeur did, there is nothing
in that to vex you, for Francoeur sang well and he would have been very
handsome if it had not been for his grey hair and his red nose."

"Honey-Bee of Clarides, Princess of the Dwarfs," the king replied, "I
love you in the hope that some day you will love me. And yet without
that hope I should love you just the same. The only return I ask for my
friendship is that you will always be honest with me."

"Little King Loc, I promise."

"Well then, tell me truly, Honey-Bee, do you love some one else enough
to marry him?"

"Little King Loc, I love no one enough for that."

Whereupon King Loc smiled, and seizing his golden cup he proposed, with
a resounding voice, the health of the Princess of the Dwarfs. An immense
uproar rose from the depths of the earth, for the banquet table reached
from one end to the other of the Empire of the Dwarfs.

XIV

In which we are told how Honey-Bee saw her mother again, but
could not embrace her

Honey-Bee, a crown on her head, was now more often sad and lost in
thought than when her hair flowed loose over her shoulders, and when
she went laughing to the forge and pulled the beards of her good friends
Pic, Tad and Dig, whose faces, red from the reflected flames, gave her a
gay welcome. But now these good dwarfs, who had once danced her on their
knees and called her Honey-Bee, bowed as she passed and maintained a
respectful silence. She grieved because she was no longer a child, and
she suffered because she was the Princess of the Dwarfs.

It was no longer a pleasure for her to see King Loc, since she had seen
him weep because of her. But she loved him, for he was good and unhappy.
One day, if one may say that there are days in the empire of the dwarfs,
she took King Loc by the hand and drew him under the cleft in the rock,
through which a sunbeam shone, along whose rays there danced a haze of
golden dust.

"Little King Loc," she said, "I suffer. You are a king and you love