adly, he was so fat and
heavy, and as he grew daily fatter, he was at last obliged to give up
walking, and be dragged about in a wheel-chair, and the people made fun
of him, and gave him the name of my Lord Tubby.

Now, the only trouble that Lord Tubby had was about his son, whom he
loved very much, although they were not in the least alike, for the
young Prince was as thin as a cuckoo. And what vexed him more than all
was, that though the young ladies throughout all his lands did their
best to make the Prince fall in love with them, he would have nothing to
say to any of them, and told his father he did not wish to marry.

Instead of chatting with them in the dusk, he wandered about the woods,
whispering to the moon. No wonder the young ladies thought him very odd,
but they liked him all the better for that; and as he had received at
his birth the name of Desire, they all called him d'Amour Desire.

'What is the matter with you?' his father often said to him. 'You have
everything you can possibly wish for: a good bed, good food, and tuns
full of beer. The only thing you want, in order to become as fat as a
pig, is a wife that can bring you broad, rich lands. So marry, and you
will be perfectly happy.'

'I ask nothing better than to marry,' replied Desire, 'but I have never
seen a woman that pleases me. All the girls here are pink and white, and
I am tired to death of their eternal lilie and roses.

'My faith!' cried Tubby; 'do you want to marry a negress, and give me
grandchildren as ugly as monkeys and as stupid as owls?'

'No, father, nothing of the sort. But there must be women somewhere in
the world who are neither pink nor white, and I tell you, once for all,
that I will never marry until I have found one exactly to my taste.'

II

Some time afterwards, it happened that the Prior of the Abbey of
Saint Amand sent to the Lord of Avesnes a basket of oranges, with a
beautifully-written letter saying that these golden fruit, then unknown
in Flanders, came straight from a land where the sun always shone.

That evening Tubby and his son ate the golden apples at supper, and
thought them delicious.

Next morning as the day dawned, Desire went down to the stable and
saddled his pretty white horse. Then he went, all dressed for a journey,
to the bedside of Tubby, and found him smoking his first pipe.

'Father,' he said gravely, 'I have come to bid you farewell. Last night
I dreamed that I was walking in a woo