The lady raised her eyes to the ceiling, and saw there what appeared to be a kind of white cloud. While gazing, full of wonder at this strange appearance, she perceived, flying from it, a small, white dove. Following its motions with her eye, she saw that it was flying in circles around the cradle. These circles grew smaller and smaller, and at length the beautiful little creature alighted upon the clasped hands of the child, and then creeping into its bosom, just where its little heart was beating, it lay there as quietly as if it had never in its life known any other nest.
The lady now perceived that the air was filled with the singing of birds, and, looking up, she saw that the white cloud had changed, and was now of the most brilliant colors; and that from the midst of it were flying birds such as she had never before seen or heard,—birds of the most radiant plumage, purple and gold and scarlet, and whose warbling was inexpressibly melodious. The whole room was filled with their brightness and with their music. They seemed to be attendants of the white dove, for they hovered about the cradle, though not one alighted. Poised in the air, fluttering their bright wings, their singing was not like that of birds, but like some heavenly anthem, such as she had imagined might be sung by angels.
At first this music was overpowering, but grew softer by degrees, and so soothing that the lady soon lost all consciousness of what was about her. Her eyelids drooped, and she wondered how it was that the music sounded so far away.
When the power of opening her eyes was restored to her, she looked eagerly about, and then grew very sad, for there were no sweet sounds in the room,—no birds, no music.
Running to her child, she searched eagerly in its bosom. But no dove was there,—nothing but a warm, bright red spot, just over its little heart.
The babe opened its blue eyes, smiled, and put out its tiny hands to its mother; and the Pale Lady might have thought she had been dreaming, were it not for the bright red spot which, as I said before, was plainly to be seen just over the little quick-beating heart.
CHAPTER II.
KING BRONDÉ.
ALTHOUGH I have told you something of his palace and of his daughters and of his queen, I have as yet hardly spoken of the king himself.
King Brondé was once a poor little boy, and lived with his mother in a brown hut or cottage, near the borders of a forest. One day, when he was in the forest with some other children, chopping fagots for his mother’s fire, a giant chanced to pass that way, and, by accident, his foot became entangled in the branches of a thick thorn-tree, causing him to roar out most lustily. The other children screamed, and ran away. But Brondé climbed the tree, and, with his hatchet, hacked away the branches.
“Thank you, my little man!” said the giant. “Come, live with me, and I’ll teach you to grow. Would you like that?”