‘Now,’ said he, ‘if you will tell me where you come from, I will try to find out how to take you back.’
So she told him all her story, and he listened very attentively. When she had finished he said:
‘It’s lucky for you that Wopole forgot the eagle, or goodness knows what would have happened to you; but how you’re to get back I don’t know. It’s my opinion you never will, for no one was ever known to pass those mountains safely yet.’
I don’t know what else he would have gone on to say, but by this time the Princess had begun to cry bitterly.
‘Oh dear me!’ said the old man, ‘what a fool I was to go and tell her all that. Now goodness knows what’ll happen. Oh dear, oh dear, Princess, don’t go on weeping like that, or you’ll melt altogether; do leave off.’
But the Princess did not seem at all inclined to leave off, and she might have melted altogether, only just then the door opened, and an old woman with a market-basket on her arm and a big umbrella in her hand came into the room, but stood transfixed with her eyes and mouth wide open when she saw the Princess.
‘My! Abbonamento, what’s the little girl crying for? and where does she come from? and what does it all mean?’
And she picked up her umbrella, which she had dropped, and leaned it against the table, and put her market-basket on a chair. This she did very slowly, and all the while the old king was telling her what had happened, so that by the time she had finished her preparations she knew nearly as much about it as he did. When he had finished she shook her head.
‘Poor girl! poor girl! So you come from the land on the other side of the mountains. I know it.’
The Princess had by this time left off crying, and when she heard the old lady say ‘I know it’ she said: