holes. When the cock crowed the third time the fiddles stopped,
and a delicious supper was served by negro boys, consisting of
sugared orange flowers, crystallised rose leaves, powdered violets,
cracknels, wafers, and other dishes, which are, as everyone knows,
the favourite food of princesses.

After supper, the dancers all went back to their boats, and this
time the Star Gazer entered that of the eldest Princess. They crossed
again the wood with the diamond-spangled leaves, the wood with
gold-sprinkled leaves, and the wood whose leaves glittered with
drops of silver, and as a proof of what he had seen, the boy broke
a small branch from a tree in the last wood. Lina turned as she
heard the noise made by the breaking of the branch.

`What was that noise?' she said.

`It was nothing,' replied her eldest sister; `it was only the
screech of the barn-owl that roosts in one of the turrets of the
castle.'

While she was speaking Michael managed to slip in front, and
running up the staircase, he reached the princesses' room first. He
flung open the window, and sliding down the vine which climbed
up the wall, found himself in the garden just as the sun was
beginning to rise, and it was time for him to set to his work.


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