ment;
but they had all, one after another, come up to the surface again for
breath, when--tinkle, tinkle, babble, and gush! came the princess's
laugh over the water from far away. There she was, swimming like a
swan. Nor would she come out for king or queen, chancellor or
daughter. She was perfectly obstinate.

But at the same time she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that
was because a great pleasure spoils laughing. At all events, after
this, the passion of her life was to get into the water, and she was
always the better behaved and the more beautiful the more she had of
it. Summer and winter it was quite the same; only she could not stay
so long in the water when they had to break the ice to let her in. Any
day, from morning till evening in summer, she might be descried--a
streak of white in the blue water--lying as still as the shadow of a
cloud, or shooting along like a dolphin; disappearing, and coming up
again far off, just where one did not expect her. She would have been
in the lake of a night, too, if she could have had her way; for the
balcony of her window overhung a deep pool in it; and through a shallow
reedy passage she could have swum out into the wide wet water, and no
one would have been any the wiser. Indeed, when she happened to wake
in the moonlight she could hardly resist the temptation. But there was
the sad difficulty of getting into it. She had as great a dread of the
air as some children have of the water. For the slightest gust of wind
would blow her away; and a gust might arise in the stillest moment.
And if she gave herself a push towards the water and just failed of
reaching it, her situation would be dreadfully awkward, irrespective of
the wind; for at best there she would have to remain, suspended in her
nightgown, till she was seen and angled for by someone from the window.

"Oh! if I had my gravity," thought she, contemplating the water, "I
would flash off this balcony like a long white sea-bird, headlong into
the darling wetness. Heigh-ho!"

This was the only consideration that made her wish to be like other
people.

Another reason for her being fond of the water was that in it alone she
enjoyed any freedom. For she could not walk out without a cortege,
consisting in part of a troop of light horse, for fear of the liberties
which the wind might take with her. And the king grew more
apprehensive with increasing years, till at last he would not allow her
to wal