Page:The happy prince and other tales.djvu/41

 THE HAPPY PRINCE

your eye. You would be quite blind then."

" Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, " do as I command you."

So he plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. " What a lovely bit of glass ! ' cried the little girl ; and she ran home, laughing.

Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. " You are blind now," he said, " so I will stay with you always."

" No, little Swallow," said the poor Prince, " you must go away to Egypt."

" I will stay with you always," said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince's feet.

All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the

red ibises, who stand in long rows on the

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