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queen. But she said nothing, and went into a spare room, and took off all the bedding, and laid a pea on the sacking of the bedstead. She then took twenty mattresses and laid them upon the pea, and then piled twenty eider-down beds on the top of the mattresses.

The princess lay upon them the whole night. On the following morning she was asked how she had slept.

"Oh, most shockingly!" said the princess. "I scarcely closed my eyes all night! I do not know what was in the bed. I laid upon some hard substance, which has made me black and blue all over. It is quite dreadful!"

It was now evident that she was a real princess, since she perceived the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds. None but a real princess could have such delicate feeling.

So the prince married her, for he knew that he had now found a real princess; and the pea was preserved in the cabinet of curiosities, where it is still to be seen, unless somebody has stolen it.

And this mind you, is a real story.