"And true," put in quiet, blue-eyed Marouska.
Helena laughed. "Very well," she said, "it'll be truly Slovak, and exciting, and as true as any fairy tale can be."
CHAPTER III
A SLOVAK FOLK TALE
There was once an old king who, knowing that his end was nearing, called his son to him and begged him to take a wife.
"I would fain see you settled before I die," he said.
The son knew not what to do, for of all the maidens in his father's court there was none that had especial charm for him. He was thinking this over in the castle garden when an old woman suddenly stood before him. Wherever she came from, she was certainly there.
"Pluck the three lemons on the glass mountain and you will gain a wife such as next to none possesses," she said. As she appeared, so she disappeared. Her words, however, sank into the youth's heart, and leaving good-by for his father, he set out at once to find the glass mountain and the magic lemons.