THE REAL PRINCESS


There was once a prince, and he wanted a princess, but then she must be
a _real_ Princess. He travelled right round the world to find one, but
there was always something wrong. There were plenty of princesses, but
whether they were real princesses he had great difficulty in
discovering; there was always something which was not quite right about
them. So at last he had to come home again, and he was very sad because
he wanted a real princess so badly.

One evening there was a terrible storm; it thundered and lightened and
the rain poured down in torrents; indeed it was a fearful night.

In the middle of the storm somebody knocked at the town gate, and the
old King himself went to open it.

It was a princess who stood outside, but she was in a terrible state
from the rain and the storm. The water streamed out of her hair and her
clothes; it ran in at the top of her shoes and out at the heel, but she
said that she was a real princess.

'Well we shall soon see if that is true,' thought the old Queen, but she
said nothing. She went into the bedroom, took all the bedclothes off and
laid a pea on the bedstead: then she took twenty mattresses and piled
them on the top of the pea, and then twenty feather beds on the top of
the mattresses. This was where the princess was to sleep that night. In
the morning they asked her how she had slept.