"I am Princess Winsome," she announced, as soon as she had breath enough to speak.
"To be sure you are," smiled the Weird Witch, who knew that before; "and you have run away from home because—"
"Because I want to find the bravest boy in the world," interrupted the Princess, who never liked to let anybody else do the talking.
"Are they all cowards in your country, then?" asked the Witch.
"Oh no," answered Princess Winsome; "the boys in my country are so brave that it is no fun playing with them. They stop all the games by fighting about nothing at all; and it's dreadfully dull when you're a girl, isn't it?"
"Perhaps it is," smiled the Witch. "Then why are you looking for the bravest boy of all?"
"Ah," said the little Princess, wisely, "the bravest boy of all would never fight unless there was a reason, you see; and so we should have lots of time to play. But how am I to find him?"
"The only way to find him is to let him find you," said the Weird Witch; "and the best thing I can do for you is to shut you up in the middle of an enchanted forest, where no one but the bravest boy in the world would ever come to find any one. Now, make haste, or you won't get there in time!"
And the Princess with the scratch on her chin must certainly have made haste, for she had quite disappeared by the time the Witch's next visitor came up the winding white path; and that happened the very next minute. This time it was a boy who came along,—a tall, strong, jolly-looking boy, with his hands in his pockets and his cap at the back of his head, whistling a strange wild tune that was made up of all the songs of all the birds in the air, so that, as he whistled it, every bird for miles round stopped to listen.
"I am Kit the Coward," he said, pulling off his cap to the Witch.