Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/184

168 it is my wicked nurse who is to blame, she changed me into a grey-goose, and dressed her daughter up in my wedding clothes."

The brother and sister burst into tears and bemoaned their hard fate; but when morning dawned the princess again put on her feathers and became a grey-goose once more, and flew away to sea. This went on for some time, till at last one night a soldier saw all that passed between the brother and sister, and how the princess changed herself into a grey-goose and flew away; so he went and told his master, Prince Ignatius, all he had heard and seen. The prince was greatly astonished, and ordered that when the grey-goose again made her appearance, he should be told of it.

Midnight came, and with it Princess Marie; she hung her feathers on the nail by the window and ran to her brother. The guards at once told their prince, who ordered the feathers to be burnt immediately, and then putting his ear to the key-hole of the prison-door, heard the princess say,—

"Demitrius, dearest and best of brothers, how frightfully dull and horrid it must be for you in this dreadful place. And to think that all this misfortune has come through that horrid nurse of mine, who changed me into a grey-goose, and dressed her daughter up in my wedding garments, so that she might marry Prince Ignatius. Oh, dear! and I am heartily sick of being a goose. It is such a stupid life."

As soon as Prince Ignatius heard all this he unlocked the prison-door and rushed in. Poor Princess Marie was so frightened that she ran to the window