ise?' she said.

'It was nothing,' replied her eldest sister; 'it was only the screech of
the barn-owl that roosts in one of the turrets of the castle.'

While she was speaking Michael managed to slip in front, and running up
the staircase, he reached the princesses' room first. He flung open
the window, and sliding down the vine which climbed up the wall, found
himself in the garden just as the sun was beginning to rise, and it was
time for him to set to his work.

X

That day, when he made up the bouquets, Michael hid the branch with the
silver drops in the nosegay intended for the youngest Princess.

When Lina discovered it she was much surprised. However, she said
nothing to her sisters, but as she met the boy by accident while she was
walking under the shade of the elms, she suddenly stopped as if to speak
to him; then, altering her mind, went on her way.

The same evening the twelve sisters went again to the ball, and the Star
Gazer again followed them and crossed the lake in Lina's boat. This time
it was the Prince who complained that the boat seemed very heavy.

'It is the heat,' replied the Princess. 'I, too, have been feeling very
warm.'

During the ball she looked everywhere for the gardener's boy, but she
never saw him.

As they came back, Michael gathered a branch from the wood with the
gold-spangled leaves, and now it was the eldest Princess who heard the
noise that it made in breaking.

'It is nothing,' said Lina; 'only the cry of the owl which roosts in the
turrets of the castle.'

XI

As soon as she got up she found the branch in her bouquet. When the
sisters went down she stayed a little behind and said to the cow-boy:
'Where does this branch come from?'

'Your Royal Highness knows well enough,' answered Michael.

'So you have followed us?'

'Yes, Princess.'

'How did you manage it? we never saw you.'

'I hid myself,' replied the Star Gazer quietly.

The Princess was silent a moment, and then said:

'You know our secret!--keep it. Here is the reward of your discretion.'
And she flung the boy a purse of gold.

'I do not sell my silence,' answered Michael, and he went away without
picking up the purse.

For three nights Lina neither saw nor heard anything extraordinary; on
the fourth she heard a rustling among the diamond-spangled leaves of the
wood. That day there was a branch of the trees in her bouquet.

She took the Star Gazer aside, and said to him in a harsh voi