of white chiffon and diamonds.

'The beggar maid,' said Taykin, 'looking like a princess! I'll marry her
just the same.'

'I've come to give the orders for dinner,' she said; and then she saw
who it was, and gave one little cry and stood still, trembling.

'To order the dinner,' said the nurse. 'Then you're----'

'Yes,' said Aura, 'I'm the Princess.'

'You're the Princess,' said the Magician. 'Then I'll marry you all the
more. And if you say no I'll uglify you as the word leaves your lips.
Oh, yes--you think I've just been amusing myself over my cooking--but
I've really been brewing the strongest spell in the world. Marry me--or
drink----'

The Princess shuddered at these dreadful words.

'Drink, or marry me,' said the Magician. 'If you marry me you shall be
beautiful for ever.'

'Ah,' said the nurse, 'he's a match even for a Princess.'

'I'll tell papa,' said the Princess, sobbing.

'No, you won't,' said Taykin. 'Your father will never know. If you won't
marry me you shall drink this and become my scullery maid--my hideous
scullery maid--and wash up for ever in the lonely tower.'

He caught her by the wrist.

'Stop,' cried the apprentice, who was a Prince.

'Stop? _Me?_ Nonsense! Pooh!' said the Magician.

'Stop, I say!' said James, who was Fortunatus. '_I've got your heart!_'
He had--and he held it up in one hand, and in the other a cooking knife.

'One step nearer that lady,' said he, 'and in goes the knife.'

The Magician positively skipped in his agony and terror.

'I say, look out!' he cried. 'Be careful what you're doing. Accidents
happen so easily! Suppose your foot slipped! Then no apologies would
meet the case. That's my heart you've got there. My life's bound up in
it.'

'I know. That's often the case with people's hearts,' said Fortunatus.
'We've got you, my dear sir, on toast. My Princess, might I trouble you
to call the guards.'

The Magician did not dare to resist, so the guards arrested him. The
nurse, though in floods of tears, managed to serve up a very good plain
dinner, and after dinner the Magician was brought before the King.

Now the King, as soon as he had seen that his daughter had been made so
beautiful, had caused a large number of princes to be fetched by
telephone. He was anxious to get her married at once in case she turned
ugly again. So before he could do justice to the Magician he had to
settle which of the princes was to marry the Princess. He had chosen the
Pr