t you will be here to-morrow
morning early, to play with me for a little while?" he persisted.

The Princess laughed a silvery little laugh. "Who knows whom you may
find if you are in the garden again to-morrow morning early." And
without another word she slipped away before Joyeuse could tell which
way she went. For she knew every turning of the paths and all the
windings between the hedges, which were puzzling to strangers.

II

The next morning at the same hour Joyeuse was wandering through the
paths of the garden, seeking his flower-maiden. He looked for her first
near the arbor of morning-glories, but Fleurette was not there. He had
to search far and wide before he found her at last in quite another part
of the garden, among the lilies. She wore a white lily in her yellow
locks.

"Ah!" cried Joyeuse, when he spied her, "it is a lily to-day. But
yesterday I thought I guessed your favorite flower. Now I find that I
was wrong. Surely, this is your choice. So fair, so pure,--a Princess
herself could choose no better."

Fleurette smiled brightly at him, shaking her hair from side to side in
a golden shower. "One cannot so easily read my thoughts as he may
suppose," she cried saucily.

"Dear maiden," said Joyeuse, coming nearer and taking her hand, "I have
no wonderful garden like this where I can invite you to dwell as its
little princess. But come with me, and we will make a tiny one of our
very own, where no one shall forbid us at any hour, and where we will
play at being Prince and Princess, as happy as two butterflies."

But Fleurette shook her head and said: "No, I can never leave the garden
and my Princess. She could not live without me. I shall dwell here
always and always, so long as the flowers and I are a-blooming."

[Illustration: UNTIL SHE CLAPPED HER HANDS FOR JOY]

"Then I, too, must live here always and always!" declared Joyeuse.
"Perhaps the Princess will take me for her minstrel, or her soldier, or
her man of medicine,--anything that will keep me near you, so that we
can play together here in the garden. Would that please you, little
flower?"

Fleurette looked thoughtful. "I should be sorry to have you go," she
said; "you love the flowers so dearly, it would be a pity."

"Yes, indeed I love them!" cried Joyeuse. "Let us then go to the
Princess and ask her to keep me in her service."

The Princess looked long at Joyeuse, and at last she said: "How do I
know what manner of minstrel you ar