One day the Princess sat beside a fountain in the gardens, and played with a golden ball. She threw it up into the air and caught it again, and the ball shone and glittered in the sunshine so that she laughed aloud with pleasure. But presently as she caught at the ball she missed it, and it rolled across the grass and fell into the fountain. There it sank to the bottom. The Princess tried and tried to reach it, but she could not. Then she began to weep, and her tears dripped down into the fountain.
“Princess, Princess, why are you weeping?” asked a hoarse voice.
The Princess looked about her, and there was a great squat green frog sitting on the edge of the fountain.
“I am weeping, Froggie, because I have dropped my ball into the water and I cannot get it again,” answered the Princess.
“And what will you give me if I get it for you?”
“Anything in the world, dear Frog, except the ball itself.”
“I wish you to give me nothing, Princess,” said the frog. “But if I bring back your ball to you will you let me be your little playmate? Will you let me sit at your table, and eat from your plate, and drink from your mug, and sleep in your little bed?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the Princess. She was very willing to promise, for she did not believe the frog could ever leave the fountain, or come up the palace steps.
“Very well, then that is a promise,” said the frog, and at once he plunged into the fountain and brought back the ball to the Princess in his arms.
The little girl took the ball and ran away with it without even stopping to thank him.