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286 they have at home when there is a party.) He took all his many-coloured retinue with him, and they waited on the terrace while the Magician knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said the Princess.

“I’ve come to marry you,” said the Magician, coming to the point at once; for he had arranged to have a procession that afternoon, and he was a little pressed for time.

But Perihelia said, “No, thank you.”

The Magician could hardly believe his ears. “But you’ll be Queen of the land,” said he, “and that’s what you’d have been if you’d married my brother, and, I suppose, what you wanted to be.”

“O no, it isn’t,” said she.

“Well, what did you want?” said he.

“I wanted to be the White King’s wife,” said she.

“It’s the same thing,” he said.

But she said: “No, it isn’t, not a bit.” And it was in vain that he showed her his best plush suit and the plush suits of his retainers; she simply wouldn’t look at them, nor at the precious stones either; so at last he went off to his Palace to make more rubies and precious stones and things like that, and she went off to cry over the white stone.