Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/145

Rh bowing, thanks and offerings, hopes and promises, soft words and compliments. And when this had continued for several days, Petrosinella and the prince became so intimate that they made an appointment to meet, and agreed that it should be at night, when the Moon plays at hide-and-seek with the Stars; and that Petrosinella should give the ogress some poppy-juice, and draw up the prince with her tresses. So when the appointed hour came, the prince went to the tower, where Petrosinella, letting fall her hair at a given signal, he seized it with both his hands, and cried, "Draw up!" And when he was drawn up, he crept through the little window into the chamber.

The next morning, before the Sun taught his steeds to leap through the hoop of the Zodiac, the prince descended by the same golden ladder, to go his way home. And having repeated these visits many times, a gossip of the ogress, who was for ever prying into things that did not concern her, and poking her nose into every corner, got to find out the secret, and told the ogress to be upon the look-out, for that Petrosinella made love with a certain youth, and she suspected that matters would go further; adding, that she saw what was going on, and feared they would be off and away before May.