“Did he carry me through the streets?” asked the Princess, very much astonished. “I wonder I was not recognised.”
“No one could recognise you as you were then,” said the Queen, and nodded wisely, but she did not tell the Princess that she had been a rosebud when she was carried by the doctor.
“I’ve had such a lot of adventures,” said the Rose-Princess; “but I don’t know how I came from one place to the other. First, I was in the palace, then in Ardram’s room, then by his sick mother’s bedside, and now here. It must be the faeries.”
“It is the faeries,” observed the Queen, kissing her daughter again. “You’ll know all about it when you marry the exiled Prince, and break the spell.”
“Oh, I can break whatever spell there is when I marry Ardram,” said the Rose-Princess; “he is the exiled Prince.”
“Nonsense!” said the King, frowning.
“Pooh!” said the Queen in an angry tone.
“Oh, but he is,” cried the Rose-Princess gaily. “I saw his crown, for his mother showed it to me.”
“Then, if he is the real Prince,” said the King, “you had better marry him, and break the enchantment.”
“What enchantment?” asked the Rose-Princess.