“Then you are a Real Kitchen-maid, and not noble at all?” said the Prince.
She stopped crying for a minute to say “No.”
“Never mind,” said the Prince. “You are twice as pretty as all the Kings’ daughters put together and twenty times as dear.”
At that she stopped crying for good and all, and looked up at him from the floor where she sat.
“Yes you are,” he said, “and I love you with all my heart.”
And with that he caught her in his arms and kissed her; and the Real Kitchen-Maid laid her face against his, and her heart beat wildly, for she knew what the Prince did not, and what, indeed, all the folk knew except the Prince, that this had been foretold at his christening; but she knew also that though he loved her, he was not to marry her, since it was his dreadful destiny to marry some one with four feet and no hands.
“I wish I had no hands and four feet,” said the Real Kitchen-maid to herself. “I wouldn’t mind a bit, since it is me he loves.”
“What are you saying?” asked the Prince.
“I am saying that you must go,” said she. “If their Kitchen Highnesses find you here with me they’ll tear me into little pieces, for they all love you—to a Highness.”