"Oh, I wish I could!" cried the Princess. "I don't believe once would matter. I'll put them in a safe place where the sea can't get at them," and as she spoke she pulled off her golden shoes, and hid them in a great hurry behind a sand-bank.
The Princess's little friends ran off laughing; while she followed, her hair streaming, her bare feet twinkling in the sunlight.
"How nice it is to be free, without those tiresome shoes!" cried the Princess.
The children paddled in the water until they were tired, and then Sidigunda thought it was time to put on her slippers again. She ran to the bank, but gave a cry of astonishment—she could only find one of her golden shoes! Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked about her wildly.
"Oh what shall I do?" she cried. "My shoe! My Godfather's shoe!"
The children gathered round her eagerly.
"It must be there. Who can have taken it?"
They searched the low sand dunes up and down, but not a trace of the lost slipper could be found. It was gone as entirely as if it had never existed; and as the Princess drew on the remaining one, the tears rolled down her face, and fell upon the sand-hill by which she was sitting.
"Oh, Godfather! dear Godfather! come and help me!" she wailed. "Do come and help me!"
At her cry, the sand-hill began to quiver and shake strangely. It heaved up, and an old man's head, with a long grey beard, appeared in the middle; followed slowly by a little brown-coated body.