PRINCESS CANTILLA
Princess Cantilla lived in a castle like most princesses, but she was not a rich princess, for her father had lost all his lands and money by quarreling with other kings about the length and breadth of his kingdom and theirs.
So poor little Cantilla had to work just like any common peasant girl and cook the meals for herself and her father.
The old castle where Cantilla and her father lived had fallen into decay, and only a few rooms at one end were now used, so that the bats and owls had taken possession of the towers and once gorgeous halls on the opposite side of the castle, where beautiful ladies and courtly gentlemen were once seen in gay and festive pleasures. A kitchen and a bedroom apiece were all the rooms that Cantilla and her father, the old King, used, and the furniture was so old it hardly held together.
One day Cantilla was cooking soup for dinner, and as the steam rolled up from the kettle Cantilla thought she saw a face with a long beard looking at her. She drew her hand across her eyes to make her sight more clear, and the next time she looked she did see a face, and a form, too.
A little man with a misshapen back and a long white beard, the ends of which he carried over one arm, stepped from the cover of the boiling pot and hopped to the floor.
“Princess,” he said, bowing low before Cantilla, “I am an enchanted dwarf. I can give you back your once beautiful home and make your father a rich king again.
“I can cause all the rooms of the old castle to become new and filled with beautiful hangings and furniture, as they were before your father became so poor.”
Cantilla began to smile at the thought of all the luxury and comfort the dwarf pictured, and she lost sight of his ugly-looking body and face for a minute, but she was brought to her senses by what the dwarf next said.