nd I hope you will put the princess
out of your head,' she replied.

'Well, but what is it?' persisted he.

'Nothing but to build a palace of ice wherein fires can burn that shall
keep it so warm that the most delicate singing-birds can live in it!'

'I thought it would be something much harder than that,' exclaimed the
young man. 'I will see about it at once.' And leaving his mother, he
went into the country and took the stone from his turban.

'I want a palace of ice that can be warmed with fires and filled with
the rarest singing-birds!'

'Shut your eyes, then,' said the stone; and he shut them, and when he
opened them again there was the palace, more beautiful than anything he
could have imagined, the fires throwing a soft pink glow over the ice.

'It is fit even for the princess,' thought he to himself.

As soon as the king awoke next morning he ran to the window, and there
across the plain he beheld the palace.

'That young man must be a great wizard; he may be useful to me.'
And when the mother came again to tell him that his orders had been
fulfilled he received her with great honour, and bade her tell her son
that the wedding was fixed for the following day.

The princess was delighted with her new home, and with her husband
also; and several days slipped happily by, spent in turning over all the
beautiful things that the palace contained. But at length the young man
grew tired of always staying inside walls, and he told his wife that
the next day he must leave her for a few hours, and go out hunting. 'You
will not mind?' he asked. And she answered as became a good wife:

'Yes, of course I shall mind; but I will spend the day in planning out
some new dresses; and then it will be so delightful when you come back,
you know!'

So the husband went off to hunt, with the falcon on his wrist, and the
greyhound and the cat behind him--for the palace was so warm that even
the cat did not mind living in it.

No sooner had he gone, than the ogre who had been watching his chance
for many days, knocked at the door of the palace.

'I have just returned from a far country,' he said, 'and I have some of
the largest and most brilliant stones in the world with me. The princess
is known to love beautiful things, perhaps she might like to buy some?'

Now the princess had been wondering for many days what trimming she
should put on her dresses, so that they should outshine the dresses of
the other ladies at the cour