The Princess Lina was very angry, and when the Star Gazer
presented her bouquet, she received it in a disdainful manner.

Michael behaved most respectfully. He never raised his eyes to her,
but nearly all day she felt him at her side without ever seeing him.

One day she made up her mind to tell everything to her eldest sister.

`What!' said she, `this rogue knows our secret, and you never
told me! I must lose no time in getting rid of him.'

`But how?'

`Why, by having him taken to the tower with the dungeons, of course.'

For this was the way that in old times beautiful princesses got
rid of people who knew too much.

But the astonishing part of it was that the youngest sister did
not seem at all to relish this method of stopping the mouth of the
gardener's boy, who, after all, had said nothing to their father.


XIII


It was agreed that the question should be submitted to the other
ten sisters. All were on the side of the eldest. Then the youngest
sister declared that if they laid a finger on the little garden boy, she
would herself go and tell their father the secret of the holes in their shoes.