“Yes,” answered Teddy, “I have come.”
The princess looked about her. “But what became of the spider?” she said. Then Teddy, too, looked about, and there was the spider running across the floor toward where the princess lay.
Quickly he sprang from her side and set his foot upon it. There was a thin squeak and then —there was nothing left of the little gray spinner but a tiny gray smudge on the floor.
Instantly the golden castle was shaken from top to bottom, and there was a sound of many voices shouting outside. The princess rose to her feet and caught the hero by the hand. “You have broken the enchantment,” she cried, “and now you shall be the King of the Golden Castle and reign with me.”
“Oh, but I can’t,” said Teddy, “because —because—”
But the princess drew him out with her through the hall, and there they were at the head of the flight of glass steps. A great host of soldiers and courtiers were running up it. They were dressed in cloth of gold, and they shouted at the sight of Teddy: “Hail to the hero! Hail to the hero!” and Teddy knew them by their voices for the golden birds that had fluttered around him in the garden below.
“And all this is yours,” said the beautiful princess, turning toward him with—
“So that is the story of the yellow square,” said the Counterpane Fairy.
Teddy looked about him. The golden castle was gone, and the stairs, and the shouting courtiers. He was lying in bed with the silk coverlet over his little knees and Hannah was still singing in the kitchen below.