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190 the handsomest man in all the world, and so he was in a trice. When the princess saw how handsome he had grown in no time, she gave the queen a nudge, and the queen passed it on to the king, and when they had all stared their full, they saw still more plainly the lad was more than he seemed to be when he first came in all tattered and torn. So they settled it among them, that the princess should go daintily to work till she had found out all about him. Yes! the princess made herself as sweet and as soft as a whole firkin of butter, and coaxed and hoaxed the lad, telling him she could not bear him out of her eyes day or night. So when the first evening was coming to an end, she said—

"As we are to have one another, you and I, you must keep nothing back from me, dearest, and so you will tell me, I am sure, how you came to make all these grand things."

"Aye, aye," then said the lad, "all that you'll come to know in good time. Only let us be man and wife; there's no good talking about it till then." That was what he said.

The next evening the princess was rather put out. "She could see with half an eye," she said, "that he couldn't care very much for his sweetheart when he wouldn't tell her what she asked him. So it would be with all the rest of his love-making, when he wouldn't meet her wishes in such a little thing."

Now the lad was quite cut to the heart, and that they might be friends again he told her the whole story from beginning to end. She was not slow in telling it to the king and queen, and so they laid their