s.

"Dear me, no! The Nonamiacs are never surprised at anything," said the
magician; and he drew in his head from the window. The Princess in the
gold and silver frock sailed away on her cloud, and landed presently in
the flat, green country of Nonamia.

"Have you seen my castle in the air?" she asked, very politely, of the
first Nonamiac she met.

"What is it like?" asked the Nonamiac, without showing the least
surprise.

"It is ever so large and ever so beautiful, and it is packed full of
happiness, and there is a nice Prince inside," answered the Princess.

"Ah," said the Nonamiac; "then it must be the one I saw being blown
along by the South Wind. But there was no Prince inside."

The Princess thanked him and hastened away in the direction of the
South Wind until she met another Nonamiac, to whom she explained as
politely as before what she wanted to know.

"Ah," said the Nonamiac, "that must be the castle I met just now as it
was being carried off by the North Wind. But I saw no Prince inside."

The Princess turned round and hurried after the North Wind as fast as
she could go. As soon as she met another Nonamiac, however, she had to
turn round once more, for he told her that her castle had just been
stolen by the East Wind; and when she had been walking quite a long
time in the direction of the East Wind, she met yet another Nonamiac,
who told her that it was the West Wind who had taken away her castle in
the air.

"It is too bad!" said the little Princess, sitting down exhausted on a
large stone by the side of the road. "Why should all the winds be
playing with my castle in the air?"

"Castles in the air generally go to the winds," observed a traveller in
a dusty brown cloak, who was sitting on another large stone, not very
far off. She was quite sure he had not been there the moment before,
but, in Nonamia, there was nothing remarkable about that. The Princess
wiped the tears out of her eyes with a small lace handkerchief, and
looked at the stranger.

"Mine is a very particular castle in the air, you see," she said. "It
is ever so large and ever so beautiful, and it is packed with happiness
and dreams, and _perhaps_ there is a Prince in it, too."

"A Prince?" said the stranger. "What sort of Prince?"

"A nice Prince," explained the Princess, "who can play games and tell
stories and be amusing. All the Princes I know can do nothing but
dance, and they are not at all amusing. I am afrai