“Are you lost? Are there other hunters here who have brought you with them and now you wait for them to return?”
“I am all alone,” she told him.
He was so surprised he did not know what to say. At last he stammered:
“Perhaps you are only teasing me—or it may be that you are afraid of me because I am a stranger. But no harm shall come to you through me—that I promise you. I am Nio Kuro, a Prince of Hi-no-moto, the Land Where the Day Begins. Forgive my rudeness in speaking to you, but will you not let me guard you and take you back to your friends?”
“I have no friends and nowhere to go,” she sighed.
“But whence do you come, O sweetest creature in all the kingdom?” cried the bewildered Prince. Again she shook her head.
“I belong to the forest,” she said simply.
“Henceforth you shall belong to me,” the Prince declared, and so he took her back to his Bamboo Castle as his bride. There every one wondered at this fair maid of the forest, but no one could find out who were her parents or where her home had been or anything about her, and the Prince was so charmed with her grace and beauty he never bothered his head about these questions that so worried other people. She loved him and he loved her and that was all he cared to know about her, for the Prince was a very clever man.
He bought her the loveliest gowns of purple and yellow satin, all embroidered in roses and green leaves and jeweled butterflies, and she had servants to wait upon her and fan her and a red and gold jinricksha to ride in. He called her a queer Japanese word which means Wild Flower, for he said she grew and blossomed in the forest and he transplanted her and made her a Princess. But that was just his own pet name for her, and he ordered that throughout the Land Where the Day Begins she should be known as the Princess Hoshi, or the Star Princess.
And he gave a great supper and invited all the people of his kingdom to it, and in the center of the table was a cake so big it looked like a snow-covered mountain, and around it were blooming all the joyous and lucky flowers, while out in the court was a maple tree covered with what every one thought at first was autumn leaves, but these leaves turned out to be little cakes of every color under the sun, and each guest was given a red paper bag filled with them to carry home. No wonder they were all glad the Prince had found a Princess Hoshi, and wished him and his Star Princess long life and much joy. It is true there were some who, as soon as they got away, nodded their heads knowingly as they munched their cakes, and said the Princess was an odd person and perhaps the Prince would one day wish he had left her in the forest.