you will when we get home,' said the king smiling, and he
talked to him about other things till they came to the palace.

'I have brought you such a nice present,' he said to his daughters, and
as the boy was very pretty they were delighted to have him and gave him
all their best toys.

'You must not spoil him,' observed the king one day, when he had been
watching them playing together. He has a secret which he won't tell to
anyone.'

'He will tell me,' answered the eldest princess; but the boy only shook
his head.

'He will tell me,' said the second girl.

'Not I,' replied the boy.

'He will tell me,' cried the youngest, who was the prettiest too.

'I will tell nobody till it comes true,' said the boy, as he had said
before; 'and I will beat anybody who asks me.'

The king was very sorry when he heard this, for he loved the boy dearly;
but he thought it would never do to keep anyone near him who would not
do as he was bid. So he commanded his servants to take him away and not
to let him enter the palace again until he had come to his right senses.

The sword clanked loudly as the boy was led away, but the child said
nothing, though he was very unhappy at being treated so badly when he
had done nothing. However, the servants were very kind to him, and their
children brought him fruit and all sorts of nice things, and he soon
grew merry again, and lived amongst them for many years till his
seventeenth birthday.

Meanwhile the two eldest princesses had become women, and had married
two powerful kings who ruled over great countries across the sea.
The youngest one was old enough to be married too, but she was very
particular, and turned up her nose at all the young princes who had
sought her hand.

One day she was sitting in the palace feeling rather dull and lonely,
and suddenly she began to wonder what the servants were doing, and
whether it was not more amusing down in their quarters. The king was at
his council and the queen was ill in bed, so there was no one to stop
the princess, and she hastily ran across the gardens to the houses where
the servants lived. Outside she noticed a youth who was handsomer than
any prince she had ever seen, and in a moment she knew him to be the
little boy she had once played with.

'Tell me your secret and I will marry you,' she said to him; but the boy
only gave her the beating he had promised her long ago, when she asked
him the same question. The girl was very angry,