ot her safely to sleep. And all this time Mistress
Marian would be lying as quiet as any mouse, with her big plait of hair
between her fingers, for so she always slept, with her hair fast in her
hands, as though she loved its beauty; and in truth it was the one great
beauty she had, for my little lady put her out with her glitter as the
sunlight doth extinguish a morning moon.

Now I had been at the castle scarce two months when one day it chances
that I hear my lady a-telling o' my lord how as her brother, Lord
Charles Radnor, dying wifeless, had left his only son to her care until
he should come of age. And on that Tuesday the little lord set foot in
the castle; and my lady was down at the door-way to meet him, in a new
velvet gown, with her wimple sewn in fine pearls, and my lord with her;
but my two nurslings waxed shy at the last minute, and would not come
down, but leaned and peered through the posts o' the stair-rail, and my
little lady let fall one o' her shoes in her eagerness to glimpse at her
new cousin. And straightway ran the lad and lifted the wee shoe, and
looked upward, laughing, and my lord and lady having retired into the
dining-hall, to see that some cold viands were in readiness (it being
then near to nightfall, though not yet supper hour).--"Ho! thou little
cinder witch," cried he; "I am the prince that has found thy shoe, and
when I shall have found thee, if that thy temper be as small as thy
shoe, fear not but that I will kiss thee too!" With that, he ran up the
stair-way, two and three steps at a leap.

And I followed, for I knew not what would happen an he claimed his kiss
as he had threatened (knowing as did I, that in verity my lady's shoe
would a been a tight fit for her temper).

But when he was arrived at the top, lo! they had both fled, neither had
they left so much as a ribbon behind them. Then the lad laughed again,
as pleasant a laugh as e'er I heard in all my days, and quoth he, "I
would be but a poor prince an I had not to search for my little
princess." So off he starts, and I after him, up and down corridors, in
at half-open doors, out upon balconies, hither and thither, after the
manner o' my little lady on her most unquiet days, till at last, for the
sake o' peace, I did slyly lead him in the direction o' the great
nursery. There, catching sight o' a little red petticoat, he enters,
where stand my truant elves confessed, Mistress Marian frowning and
biting o' her dark hair, but