"What nonsense!" she cried. "If you were a coward, you would never have got here at all."
"Is that true?" asked Kit eagerly. "Then do you think the Princess will marry me?"
The girl looked down at him for a moment, with her untidy little head on one side. Then she bent and held out her two hands to him. "I think, perhaps, the Princess will," she said softly. "If you will help me down from this enormous high wall, we will go and ask her."
So Kit lifted her down from the wall, which was quite an easy matter, for it was in reality no higher than he was and the little girl was certainly the lightest weight he had ever held in his arms. "What are you looking for?" he asked, when he had set her on the ground, for she was kneeling down and turning over the dry leaves in a most distressed manner.
"I am looking for my crown, of course," she said with a pout; "it tumbled off my head just before you came, and I was too frightened to jump all that long way to find it."
"Here it is," said Kit; and he picked up the little glittering crown and set it gently on the top of her beautiful, rumpled hair. Then he started back in surprise. "You are the Princess!" he shouted.
"Of course I am," laughed Princess Winsome, putting her hand in his; "I knew that, all the time! Shall we go home now?"
Kit did not reply immediately, for no one can do two things at once, and it took him quite a long time to kiss the small soft hand that lay in his own big one. And as for going home, when they did start they did not get very far; for it must not be forgotten that they were still in an enchanted forest, and it is easier to get into an enchanted forest than to get out of it again. However, as they had everything in the world to talk about, they would probably have been most annoyed if they had found their way instead of losing it; so they just went on losing it as happily as possible, until they could not walk another step because an immense giant was occupying the whole of the roadway. There he sat, smoking a great pipe that looked like a chimney-pot that wanted sweeping; and when the Princess saw him, she was so frightened that she hid herself behind Kit and peeped under his arm to see what was going to happen.
"Hullo!" said the giant, in a huge voice that made the grass stand on end with fright, just as it does after a hoar-frost; "what's this? You're running away with the Princess!"