The Princess, however, could do nothing of the kind. "All these are alike," she said again; "but the minstrel's son has a wonderful look on his face, and I will have no one else for a playfellow!"
So all the children went sadly back to their homes, and wondered why they were so much alike; and the whole court was made uncomfortable once more by the sulkiness of Princess Prunella.
"Your Highness's best wax doll has not been out for two whole days," suggested the head nurse.
The Princess snatched the doll from her hands and threw it on the floor.
"If you will not let me play with a boy who is deaf, how can you expect me to play with a doll?" she asked; and although, no doubt, there was much in what she said, it was hardly the way in which to speak to the head nurse. Indeed, there would have been a serious disturbance in the royal nursery the very next minute, if the Princess's cream-coloured pony had not suddenly trotted round from the stable of its own accord, and put it into her head to go for a ride.
Now, the Princess's pony was of course a fairy pony; so when he ran away with her in the forest, that day, it was not to be supposed that he would run away with her for nothing. He took her, in fact, for a real fairy ride, all through a fairy forest, that began by being quite a baby forest and then grew and grew, the deeper she went into it, until it ended in being quite a grown-up forest. And the pony never stopped running away until he reached a dear little grey house, that was set in the brightest of flower gardens, right in the middle of the forest.
The Princess slipped off his back and pushed open the little gate and walked into the flower garden. Any one else might have been surprised to find deaf Robert sitting there, in the middle of the trim green lawn, but after a fairy ride one is never surprised at anything; so the Princess's heart just gave one big jump for joy, and she ran straight up to him and took his hand.
"Poor deaf boy! poor deaf boy!" she said softly. Certainly she was not behaving like a King's daughter, for she ought to have been extremely angry with him for disobeying her in the morning, instead of which she spoke as gently to him as any ordinary little girl might have done. But then, as he could not hear what she said to him, what was the use of speaking like a princess?
"Poor deaf boy!" she repeated, bending over him; "no wonder you look so dull and unhappy!"