"How do you know?" demanded the raven, fixing his glittering eye on the Prince. "Do you understand the language of love?"
"No," said Vance, more humbly; "I must confess that I don't, though I've always heard it was very silly."
"Speaking of the boundaries of a king—" the raven began easily; but the Prince interrupted in great haste.
"Nobody was speaking of boundaries," he said sharply; "you made that up yourself."
"—dom," resumed the raven, calmly, paying no sort of attention to the interruption of the Prince, but cocking his head on one side and looking wickedly out of one eye, "they are very useful to know, and there are various ways of learning them. Some people learn them in the school room; that's one way: some travel; that's—"
But before he could get any farther Vance had caught up a stone and flung it at him. With a terrible croaking the raven flew up into the air in circles higher and higher until he vanished straight overhead.
"Ten to one that was Godmother herself," grumbled Vance, as he picked up his box and started again along the dusty road.
All the rest of the day he travelled, growing more and more weary, until at sunset he came to a very old woman sitting beside a great tree upon the river's bank.
"Hallo!" cried Vance, not too politely.
The wrinkled old creature looked at the river, at the tree, at the sky,—everywhere, in a word, except at the travel-stained Vance.