When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was
a magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in
hand under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little
pearls. Then there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five
hours. The Prince and Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall
and drank out of a cup of clear crystal. Only true lovers could
drink out of this cup, for if false lips touched it, it grew grey
and dull and cloudy.

"It's quite clear that they love each other," said the little Page,
"as clear as crystal!" and the King doubled his salary a second
time. "What an honour!" cried all the courtiers.

After the banquet there was to be a Ball. The bride and bridegroom
were to dance the Rose-dance together, and the King had promised to
play the flute. He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to
tell him so, because he was the King. Indeed, he knew only two
airs, and was never quite certain which one he was playing; but it
made no matter, for, whatever he did, everybody cried out,
"Charming! charming!"

The last item on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to
be let off exactly at midnight. The little Princess had never seen
a firework in her life, so the King had given orders that the Royal
Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of her marriage.

"What are fireworks like?" she had asked the Prince, one morning,
as she was walking on the terrace.

"They are like the Aurora Borealis," said the King, who always