“My dear,” said the white bird, “I think it unwise for you to go; my heart tells me that ill will come of it. Nevertheless, if you greatly desire it, if nothing else will make you happy, you shall have your wish. Go to the fair and stay all day. Indeed, if you go at all, you must promise me faithfully not to return until six o’clock in the evening.”
Ananda was delighted, readily gave the desired promise and bustled eagerly about, preparing for the morrow. The next day she started forth bright and early and in good time reached the fair grounds. Such a merry time she had from the very start! She made friends with everybody [[38]]around her, and having plenty of money to spend on herself and others, she soon found herself extremely popular. She saw all there was to be seen and did all there was to be done, and the morning was gone before she knew it.
Early in the afternoon there rode into the fair grounds a stranger on a snow-white horse. Very tall and strong he was, and good to look upon, and he was dressed in silk and cloth-of-gold, like a prince. Everybody began at once to ask everybody else who he was and whence he came, and it soon appeared that nobody at the fair had ever seen or heard of him before. All talked and marvelled at his handsome face, fine carriage and princely clothes, and wherever he went, a little crowd followed after him, watching curiously everything he did. Ananda saw him too, and when she looked into his face, all the happiness suddenly died within her, and she wished mightily that she had never come to the fair at all, for she knew that she loved him [[39]]with all her heart. She wandered away from her gay young companions and stood watching the stranger from a distance and feeling very sorrowful.
“What ails you, my girl?” a thin, cracked voice suddenly said in her ear, and looking around she saw a little old woman, very bent and aged, and with a shrewd, wrinkled face. “What ails you?” she repeated, tapping the ground with her staff. And because Ananda did not seem to be able to do otherwise, she told her frankly the whole thing.
“Alas, good mother,” she said, “I have fallen in love with yonder princely stranger!”
“And why should that make you unhappy?” said the old woman. “Why should you not hope to marry him as well as any other; you are a pretty wench, to be sure!”
“I am already married to the white bird,” said Ananda, with a sigh.
“That is as it should be, my dear! That [[40]]is as it should be!” And the old woman broke into a cackling laugh.
“How can that be?” cried Ananda crossly, for she was quite bewildered.
“Because, my dear, yonder princely stranger is the white bird himself in his right and proper form.”