Page:Hansel and Gretel and other stories.djvu/226

Rapunzel

Then Rapunzel let down her tresses, and the witch mounted up. "Is that the ladder on which one must climb? Then I will try my luck too," said the Prince; and the following day, as he felt quite lonely, he went to the tower, and said:

Then the tresses fell down, and he climbed up. Rapunzel was much frightened at first when a man came in, for she had never seen one before; but the King's son talked in a loving way to her, and told how his heart had been so moved by her singing that he had no peace until he had seen her himself. So Rapunzel lost her terror, and when he asked her if she would have him for a husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, "Any one may have me rather than the old woman." So, saying "Yes," she put her hand within his: "I will willingly go with you, but I know not how I am to descend. When you come, bring with you a skein of silk each time, out of which I will weave a ladder, and when it is ready I will come down by it, and you must take me upon your horse." Then they agreed that they should never meet till the evening, as the witch came in the daytime. The old woman remarked nothing about it, until one day Rapunzel

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