"That is what I am trying to do," answered Prince Amaryllis. "The spell can only be removed if a king's son will spend a whole year in this waste piece of ground and make it into a beautiful garden. But although I have been here nearly a year, I have not been able to make a single flower grow. It is a little tiresome," he added with another sigh, "for it is part of the spell that I shall have to be executed if I fail."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the little Princess. "You are much too nice to be executed! Won't you let me come and play in your garden? Perhaps I might help you to make the flowers grow."
Prince Amaryllis shook his head and smiled. "It is not a nice garden to play in," he said. "I think I will come and play in yours instead, and you shall teach me the way to make the flowers grow."
So the Prince jumped over the wall into the Princess's garden, and they walked about, hand in hand, among all the bright flower-beds that the fairies had planted there. They did not play very much, though, for they had so many things to talk about; and they talked and talked and talked, without stopping a moment, for the rest of the afternoon. For all that, when tea-time came and the Prince went back into his own garden, he remembered all sorts of things he might have said to the Princess if he had only thought of them in time; while Princess Gentianella, in the middle of her second cup of tea, also remembered all the things she might have said to the Prince, only she had not said them. That is always the way with princes and princesses who are carefully brought up.
After that, Princess Gentianella and Prince Amaryllis played together for a number of days. But they always played in the Princess's garden, because it was a much nicer garden to play in; and as for the Prince's garden, they seemed to have forgotten that altogether. Then, one afternoon, when the Princess ran out as usual into the hot sunshine, her Prince from over the wall met her with a very disconsolate face.
"The year has come to an end," he told her, "and since I cannot make the flowers grow in my garden, I shall have to go and be executed as soon as the Witch sends for me."
The little Princess's lips began to quiver, and her eyes grew large and round and shining. "It is too bad," she declared, "to execute a really nice Prince like you!"
"Do not be distressed," replied Prince Amaryllis, in a resigned tone. "Now that I have seen you, little lady, I shall be almost glad to be executed."
"You are talking nonsense," declared the Princess. "Why do you want to be executed?"
"Because, even if I knew the way to make the flowers grow," he replied, "my country would not be disenchanted unless I married Anemone, the Witch's daughter, as well. And, of course, I would sooner be executed than do that!"