“Oh it wasn’t anything!” Gran’ma cried. “I just saw the Green Jar and opened it because I was inquisitive. Of course we are very glad that we rescued the Princess from the Green Jar but we do not deserve any credit for it!”
Janey, who was anxious to hear the Dancing Master’s story, again asked Tiptoe how he happened to be in the mountains.
“The day you disappeared,” the Dancing Master said, turning to the Princess, “I was to have given you a lesson, don’t you remember? And I was on my way to the Castle when I saw people running in all directions about the City of Nite. I inquired of one why they were so excited. ‘Don’t you know?’ he answered. ‘The Beautiful Princess has disappeared! Completely vanished!’”
“When I heard this I ran with all speed to the Castle. I had the right to enter at any time in the day,” he explained to the children, “so I ran right up to the ball-room, for I heard voices in loud discord coming from there!”
“There I found a strange looking woman, with long straggly hair and a long nose, shaking her walking stick at the Princess’ Ladies in Waiting.
“What is going on here?” I cried as I ran up to the group of ladies.
“‘This strange creature claims to be the Princess and says that a Magician has transformed her into an old woman,’ the Ladies in Waiting answered. ‘We do not believe she is telling us the truth!’
“I could not believe it myself,” added the Dancing Master, “but still I have heard of stranger things, so I said to the Ladies in Waiting, ‘Perhaps she really is the Princess!’
“At first I could not get any of the ladies to agree with me,” the Little Man went on, “and really, to tell the truth, I could not blame them much for as the days went by the queer creature who said she had been changed from our own Beautiful Princess into this ugly woman did such disagreeable things to the Ladies in Waiting they all moved from the Castle, and would not have anything to do with her. After a while I discovered that the old woman was not the Princess.
“You must know that by this time no one ever went near the old woman, who lived alone and kept herself shut up in a room away in the top of the Castle tower. One night, as I was passing the Castle, I heard a window creak far above my head, and looking up I saw the old woman, seated in an umbrella, fly out of the tower window and go speeding away out of sight. Then I knew that she was a witch!