Page:Margaret sherwood--The Princess Pourquoi.djvu/58

 Then he told her how, many years ago, he, a tiny princeling, had heard a naughty little princess, in that very audience-chamber, demanding, not a fairy prince, but a real one.

"I took the only way I knew to become real," he said. "Have I found favor in your eyes, O beloved of my heart?"

"How long beloved?" asked the Princess anxiously, for she was much ashamed of the way in which she had wooed him.

"All my life long," he answered. And the peacocks never told how he kissed her.

His Majesty the King and her Majesty the Queen were delighted with the match. The royal father spent hours in telling the young Prince how great a delight his daughter's mind had always been to him,