take ... take your veil off,' said the nurse, 'or you won't feel
the benefit of it when you go out.'

'I can't,' said Aura, 'it wouldn't be safe.'

'Too beautiful, eh?' said the Magician. 'Still--you're quite safe here.'

'Can you do magic?' she abruptly asked.

'A little,' said he ironically.

'Well,' said she, 'it's like this. I'm so ugly no one can bear to look
at me. And I want to go as kitchenmaid to the palace. They want a cook
and a scullion and a kitchenmaid. I thought perhaps you'd give me
something to make me pretty. I'm only a poor beggar maid.... It would be
a great thing to me if....'

'Go along with you,' said Taykin, very cross indeed. 'I never give to
beggars.'

'Here's twopence,' whispered poor James, pressing it into her hand,
'it's all I've got left.'

'Thank you,' she whispered back. 'You _are_ good.'

And to the Magician she said:

'I happen to have fifty pounds. I'll give it you for a new face.'

'Done,' cried Taykin. 'Here's another stupid one!' He grabbed the money,
waved his wand, and then and there before the astonished eyes of the
nurse and the apprentice the ugly beggar maid became the loveliest
princess in the world.

'Lor!' said the nurse.

'My dream!' cried the apprentice.

'Please,' said the Princess, 'can I have a looking-glass?' The
apprentice ran to unhook the one that hung over the kitchen sink, and
handed it to her. 'Oh,' she said, 'how _very_ pretty I am. How can I
thank you?'

'Quite easily,' said the Magician, 'beggar maid as you are, I hereby
offer you my hand and heart.'

He put his hand into his waistcoat and pulled out his heart. It was fat
and pink, and the Princess did not like the look of it.

'Thank you very much,' said she, 'but I'd rather not.'

'But I insist,' said Taykin.

'But really, your offer....'

'Most handsome, I'm sure,' said the nurse.

'My affections are engaged,' said the Princess, looking down. 'I can't
marry you.'

'Am I to take this as a refusal?' asked Taykin; and the Princess said
she feared that he was.

'Very well, then,' he said, 'I shall see you home, and ask your father
about it. He'll not let you refuse an offer like this. Nurse, come and
tie my necktie.'

So he went out, and the nurse with him.

Then the Princess told the apprentice in a very great hurry who she was.

'It would never do,' she said, 'for him to see me home. He'd find out
that I was the Princess, and he'd uglify me again in no time.'

'He sha'n