Page:Nine Unlikely Tales.djvu/161

Rh Then the Mouse ran trembling to the Prince, and in its thin little mouse’s voice told him all.

“My love and my lady,” he said, holding the Mouse against his cheek. “I will marry you now. That will carry out the wicked fairy’s prophecy. Then we will go back to the Great White Rat, and you shall be changed into a Princess.”

So the Prince rang the church bells till all the people came out of their holes where they had been hiding, to see the strange spectacle of a Prince married to a Mouse.

And directly they were married they set off on the black charger, and when they reached the Great White Rat they told their tale.

“And now,” said the Prince joyously, “if you will change her into a lady again we will go home at once and begin living happily ever after.”

The Great White Rat looked at them gravely.

“It’s impossible,” he said. “I am sorry, but the effects of the Magic Cat’s-eye are permanent. Once a mouse, always a mouse, if you get moused by the Magic Cat’s-eye.”

The Prince and the Mouse looked sadly at each other. This was the last thing they had