They danced on till the shoes of the princesses were worn into 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.
X
That day, when he made up the bouquets, Michael hid the branch with the
silver drops in the nosegay intended for the youngest Princess.
When Lina discovered it she was much surprised. However, she said
nothing to her sisters, but as she met the boy by accident while she
was walking under the shade of the elms, she suddenly stopped as if to
speak to him; then, altering her mind, went on her way.
The same evening the twelve sisters went again to the ball, and the
Star Gazer again followed them and crossed the lake in Lina’s boat.
This time it was the Prince who complained that the boat seemed very
heavy.
‘It is the heat,’ replied the Princess. ‘I, too, have been feeling very
warm.’
During the ball she looked everywhere for the gardener’s boy, but she
never saw him.
As they came back, Michael gathered a branch from the wood with the
gold-spangled leaves, and now it was the eldest Princess who heard the
noise that it made in breaking.
‘It is nothing,’ said Lina; ‘only the cry of the owl which roosts in
the turrets of the castle.’