Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/408

398 through the garden, she met the Lad at a turning; so she stopped him, and said:

"Where did you get the golden branch that you put amongst my flowers?"

"From where, your Royal Highness knows quite well."

"That means that you followed us at night, and that you know what we do?"

Tis rather so, your Royal Highness."

"But how did you follow us, for none of us noticed you?"

"Well, slyly, I should say."

"Here is a bag of gold, and don't mention anything you have seen."

"I don't sell my silence, your Royal Highness."

"Well then, if I hear you so much as whisper anything about it, your head won't stay long on your shoulders, I warn you!"

Her mouth said these words roughly, but not so her heart. She looked at the Lad, and it seemed to her that he got more and more beautiful every day!

On the third night, the very same thing happened, only this time the Lad broke a branch from the diamonds and precious stones forest, and again the shudder passed through the trees. With calming words, the eldest princess soothed her sisters' fear. However, a hidden joy, slid into the youngest one's heart.

The next day, she found a diamond branch amongst her flowers; she glanced at the Lad through her eyelashes, and he looked to her more beautiful than any Emperor's son.

The Lad looked at her, too, and he noticed that she got rather upset, so he pretended to understand nothing, and went on with his work.

The other sisters noticed all this, and they began to laugh and mock their younger sister. She just swallowed the shame, and kept quiet, but she thought a great deal. How did that Lad follow them? Well, he didn't seem quite a ninny in doing a thing that no one else had succeeded in doing before. And then, to speak the truth, the proud figure, the beautiful features, and in truth the whole of the Lad, had so much "come along," that he had rather stolen the heart of the young princess. However, she would not be beaten, she called all her sisters, and told them what had