le round looking-glass. But come
back here before you look at it.'

The Princess did exactly what the Bat told her to do, and when she had
come back into the parlour and shut the door she looked in the little
round glass that the youngest kitchen-maid's sweetheart had given her.
And when she saw her ugly, ugly, ugly face--for you must remember she
had been growing uglier every day since she was born--she screamed and
then she said:

'That's not me, it's a horrid picture.'

'It _is_ you, though,' said the Bat firmly but kindly; 'and now you see
why you wear a veil all the week--and only look in the glass on Sunday.'

'But why,' asked the Princess in tears, 'why don't I look like that in
the Sunday looking-glasses?'

'Because you aren't like that on Sundays,' the Bat replied. 'Come,' it
went on, 'stop crying. I didn't tell you the dread secret of your
ugliness just to make you cry--but because I know the way for you to be
as pretty all the week as you are on Sundays, and since you've been so
kind to me I'll tell you. Sit down close beside me, it fatigues me to
speak loud.'

The Princess did, and listened through her veil and her tears, while the
Bat told her all that I began this story by telling you.

'My great-great-great-great-grandfather heard the tale years ago,' he
said, 'up in the dark, dusty, beautiful, comfortable, cobwebby belfry,
and I have heard scraps of it myself when the evil Bell-people were
quarrelling, or talking in their sleep, lazy things!'

'It's very good of you to tell me all this,' said Belinda, 'but what am
I to do?'

'You must find the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never
will ring, and wasn't made to ring.'

'If I were a prince,' said the Princess, 'I could go out and seek my
fortune.'

'Princesses have fortunes as well as princes,' said the Bat.

'But father and mother would never let me go and look for mine.'

'Think!' said the Bat, 'perhaps you'll find a way.'

So Belinda thought and thought. And at last she got the book that had
the portraits of eligible princes in it, and she wrote to the prince who
had the christening curse--and this is what she said:

'Princess Belinda of Carrillon-land is not afraid of christening
curses. If Prince Bellamant would like to marry her he had better
apply to her Royal Father in the usual way.

'_P.S._--I have seen your portrait.'

When the Prince got this letter he was very pleased, and wrote at once
for Pri