"Next time you come," laughed the girl in green.
"Next time?" said the King. "Why should I come twice when once would do?"
She did not trouble to answer that at all; and when the King looked again at the old lime-tree, the girl in green had completely disappeared.
"Is there a witch in the forest?" he asked, when his followers came riding up to him.
"There is the Green Enchantress, your Majesty," answered the chief huntsman. "I have never seen her, but they say she is the most beautiful woman in the whole world."
"Indeed!" said the King, in surprise; and he went home and spent the whole of the evening in trying to remember what the girl in green had looked like. He had quite forgotten, however; so the very next morning he stole out of the palace long before any one was awake, and walked as fast as he could in the direction of the old lime-tree. The wild boars and the other animals were most surprised to see him there so early in the day, and they followed him in twos and threes to see what he was going to do. As for the King, he strode on over the dewy grass and never noticed them at all. And all the while the bracken on either side of him was alive with trembling little rabbits, all squeaking to one another, with their hearts in their mouths,—
"We shall certainly be killed if the King sees us!"
At last he came to the old lime-tree at the side of the road; and there sat the wonderful girl all dressed in green, with her dark red hair falling round her down to the ground. The King would have taken off his crown to her, if he had not come out without it; but he made her a low bow instead, and the Green Enchantress began to laugh.
"Dear me!" she said, "why have you come back again?"