very foundations. In an instant I was sobered, and understood
what I had done. "Princess!" I cried, "what is happening?"

"Alas!" she exclaimed, forgetting all her own terrors in anxiety
for me, "fly, or you are lost."

I followed her advice and dashed up the staircase, leaving my
hatchet behind me. But I was too late. The palace opened and the
genius appeared, who, turning angrily to the princess, asked indignantly,

"What is the matter, that you have sent for me like this?"

"A pain in my heart," she replied hastily, "obliged me to seek
the aid of this little bottle. Feeling faint, I slipped and fell
against the talisman, which broke. That is really all."

"You are an impudent liar!" cried the genius. "How did this hatchet
and those shoes get here?"

"I never saw them before," she answered, "and you came in such
a hurry that you may have picked them up on the road without
knowing it." To this the genius only replied by insults and blows.
I could hear the shrieks and groans of the princess, and having
by this time taken off my rich garments and put on those in which I
had arrived the previous day, I lifted the trap, found myself
once more in the forest, and returned to my friend the tailor,
with a light load of wood and a heart full of shame and sorrow.

The tailor, who had been uneasy at my long absence, was, delighted to
see me; but I kept silence about my adventure, and as soon as