feed bring the seeds
in their little beaks, and the mice you used to save from the palace
mouse-traps do the weeding and raking with their sharp little teeth, and
their fine, neat, needly claws.'

'But how did they get here?' asked the Princess.

'The usual way--swimming and flying,' said the Cat.

'But aren't the mice afraid of _you_?'

'Of me?' The great Cat drew herself up to her full height. 'Anyone would
think, to hear you, that I was a _common_ cat.' And she was really cross
for nearly an hour.

That was the only approach to a quarrel that the two ever had.

Sometimes, at first, the Princess used to say:

'How long am I to stay here, pussy-nurse?'

And the Cat always said in nurse's voice:

'Till you're grown up, my dear.'

And the years went by, and each year found the Princess more good, and
clever, and beautiful. And at last she was quite grown up.

'Now,' said the Cat briskly, 'we must get to work. There's a Prince in a
kingdom a long way off, and he's the only person who can get you off
this island.'

'Does he know?' asked Everilda.

'He knows about _you_, but he doesn't know that he's the person to find
you, and he doesn't know where you are. So now every night I must fly
away and whisper about you in his ear. He'll think it's dreams, but he
believes in dreams; and he'll come in a grand ship with masts of gold
and sails of silk, and carry my Pretty away and make a Queen of her.'

'Shall I like that, pussy-nurse, do you think?' asked the Princess.

And the Cat replied:

'Yes, very much indeed. But you wouldn't like it if it were any other
King than this one, so it's just as well that it's quite impossible for
it to _be_ any other.'

'How will he come?' asked the Princess.

'Don't I tell you? In a ship, of course,' said the Cat.

'Aren't the rocks dangerous?' asked the Princess.

'Oh, very,' the Cat answered.

'Oh,' said the Princess, and grew silent and thoughtful.

That night the Cat got out its rolled-up wings, and unrolled them, and
brushed them, and fitted them on; then she lighted a large lamp and set
it in the window that looked out on the Perilous Sea.

'That's the beacon to guide the King to you,' she said.

'Won't it guide other ships here?' asked the Princess, 'with perhaps
the wrong Kings on board--the ones I shouldn't like being Queen with?'

'Very likely,' said the Cat; 'but it doesn't matter: they'd only be
wrecked. Serve them right, coming after Princesses that do