Please come home at once. Palace vacant. Tenants have
left.--Ozyliza P.

And they came immediately.

When they arrived the Princess told them the whole story, and they
kissed and praised her, and called her their deliverer and the saviour
of her country.

'_I_ haven't done anything,' she said. 'It was Erinaceus who did
everything, and....'

'But the fairies said,' interrupted the King, who was never clever at
the best of times, 'that you couldn't get the kingdom back till you had
a thousand spears devoted to you, to you alone.'

'There are a thousand spears in my back,' said a little sharp voice,
'and they are all devoted to the Princess and to her alone.'

'Don't!' said the King irritably. 'That voice coming out of nothing
makes me jump.'

'I can't get used to it either,' said the Queen. 'We must have a gold
cage built for the little animal. But I must say I wish it was visible.'

'So do I,' said the Princess earnestly. And instantly it was. I suppose
the Princess wished it very hard, for there was the hedge-pig with its
long spiky body and its little pointed face, its bright eyes, its small
round ears, and its sharp, turned-up nose.

It looked at the Princess but it did not speak.

'Say something _now_,' said Queen Eliza. 'I should like to _see_ a
hedge-pig speak.'

'The truth is, if speak I must, I must speak the truth,' said Erinaceus.
'The Princess has thrown away her life-wish to make me visible. I wish
she had wished instead for something nice for herself.'

'Oh, was that my life-wish?' cried the Princess. 'I didn't know, dear
Hedge-pig, I didn't know. If I'd only known, I would have wished you
back into your proper shape.'

'If you had,' said the hedge-pig, 'it would have been the shape of a
dead man. Remember that I have a thousand spears in my back, and no man
can carry those and live.'

The Princess burst into tears.

[Illustration: 'I would kiss you on every one of your thousand spears,'
she said, 'to give you what you wish.']

'Oh, you can't go on being a hedge-pig for ever,' she said, 'it's not
fair. I can't bear it. Oh Mamma! Oh Papa! Oh Benevola!'

And there stood Benevola before them, a little dazzling figure with blue
butterfly's wings and a wreath of moonshine.

'Well?' she said, 'well?'

'Oh, you know,' said the Princess, still crying. 'I've thrown away my
life-wish, and he's still a hedge-pig. Can't you do _anything_!'

'_I_ can't,' said the Fairy, 'but you can. Your k