She found him stretched on a couch before the window, gazing out at the sky with a melancholy air. She sat down by his side and asked him how he did, and then she showed him the little cake she had brought with her, and told him how the old woman had declared that if he would but eat it he would certainly be cured.
The prince heard her listlessly, and when she had ended he answered in a weak voice, “There is only one thing that can cure me, and that is to find some trace of the beautiful stranger, and indeed unless I can hope to see her again sometime, I do not care to live.”
“Do but try the cake, however,” said his mother persuasively. “See it is very small and light. I will break off a piece for you.”
So saying she broke a piece from the cake to give to him, but what was her surprise to see there in the piece a golden ring.
“This is certainly a very strange thing,” she cried. “Here is a ring in the cake.”
“A ring!” the prince repeated. He raised himself on his elbow to look, and no sooner had he taken it in his hand than he started up with a loud cry of joy. “Where did you get the cake?” he cried. “Who brought it to you?” for he at once recognized the ring as the one the beautiful stranger had had.
“It was brought me by an old woman who works in the kitchen; Maria di Legno they call her.”
“Let her be brought here at once,” cried the prince.
An attendant was sent to summon Maria and while he waited the prince strode up and down the room holding the ring in his hand and unable to control his impatience.
Maria had been expecting this summons, and she had managed meanwhile to arrange her hair, and dress herself in her sunlight dress, and hide in the figure again; and so it was as the homely old woman that she appeared before the prince once more.