“She is good and clever and beautiful,” he said. “What more can one want in a wife? When my mother and father see her they will love her as much as I do and will be quite willing that I should marry her.” Which really was very optimistic of him.
But alas, when he came to the village and sought the baker’s shop, he was met by strange faces.
The baker had died a month since, he was told, and his daughter had left the village and gone out into the world to work for her living, for she could not manage the bakehouse by herself and there was none to help her now that her father was gone.
The prince was very, very troubled and unhappy. He tried to find out something more about her, but his efforts were fruitless; no one seemed to know what had become of her.
“I will search the world over till I find her,” he said, “even if it take me the whole of my life.”
He wandered on and on, always making fresh inquiries, always hoping to hear something of his lost love, but always in vain.
And at last he got back to his own kingdom.
When his mother and father saw him they were horrified to find how pale and thin he had grown.
HE RODE AWAY ON HIS WHITE HORSE AND TURNED TO WAVE HIS HAND TO HIS MOTHER AND FATHER BEFORE HE WENT OVER THE HILL-TOP.