It was impossible to go on being cross when any one was as good-tempered as Smilax; so his godchild climbed at once on to the arm of his chair, and sat there with her little white feet dangling, while she told him all about the King who would not turn into a wild boar. "Is it not hard," pouted the Green Enchantress, "that I cannot bewitch the King?"
"Some kings are easier to bewitch than others," remarked the magician, wisely. "Now, what is it you want me to do for you?"
"I want you to make me into a princess," said his godchild, promptly. "Then I can go to court and dance with the King! Only think of it!" And she pretended that the poker was the King and danced round the room with it, to show how she should behave when she got to court.
"That's easily done," said Smilax. "You shall go to court and dance with the King, if you like; and I will make you so fine a princess that the King will not be able to distinguish you from all the other princesses in the palace!"
"But I don't want to be like all the other princesses, godfather; I want to be a real princess," objected the Green Enchantress.
Smilax shook his head. "Then I cannot help you," he said. "Nobody can make a real princess,—not even the Fairy Queen herself. Real princesses make themselves, and that is a very different matter."
"Shall I never go to court, then?" asked his godchild, with tears in her eyes.
"Of course you shall!" said Smilax. "Can you not go to court without being a princess? There is a back door to the palace as well as a front one, and any ordinary person can get in at the back door. But you must give up all your witchcraft the moment you set foot in the palace, for it is impossible to be an ordinary person and a bewitching one at the same moment."
"I don't mind that," said his godchild. "If I cannot bewitch the King I do not want to be an enchantress any more. I will go to the palace this very minute!"
And so she did, and that was how it came about that there was a new scullery-maid at the palace; and, one fine morning, the King met her all among the vegetables, as he took his stroll in the garden after breakfast. It is extremely probable that the King would not have noticed her at all if she had not happened to be wearing a bright green handkerchief tied over her dark red hair. He felt sure that he had seen that bright green and that dark red somewhere before, so he stopped and looked at her.