Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/247

Rh it might have a bad effect upon the eggs. The Princess must look after herself. She will get help somehow; if it had been you or I, now, or one of our sort, all would have been over with us!"

"I mean to keep a watch, though, every day," said the stork, and he kept his word.

But a long time passed, and then one day he saw that a green stem shot up from the fathomless depths, and when it reached the surface of the water a leaf appeared at the top which grew broader and broader. Next a bud appeared close by it, and one morning at dawn, just as the stork was passing, the bud opened out in the warm rays of the sun, and in the middle of it lay a lovely baby, a little girl looking just as fresh as if she had just come out of a bath. She was so exactly like the Princess from Egypt that at first the stork thought it was she who had grown small; but when he put two and two together, he came to the conclusion that it was her child and the Marsh King's. This explained why she appeared in a water lily. "She can't stay there very long," thought the stork; "and there are too many of us in my nest as it is, but an idea has just come into my head! The Viking's wife has no child, and she has often wished for one. As I am always said to bring the babies, this time I will do so in earnest. I will fly away to the Viking's wife with the baby, and that will indeed be a joy for her."

So the stork took up the little girl and flew away with her to the timbered house, where he picked a hole in the bladder skin which covered the window, and laid the baby in the arms of the Viking's wife. This done, he flew home and told the mother stork all about it, and the young ones heard what he said; they were old enough to understand it.

"So you see that the Princess is not dead; she must have sent the baby up here, and I have found a home for her."

"I said so from the very first," said Mother Stork; "now just give a little attention to your own children; it is almost