Poor deformed Caspar smiled as he watched her, and felt happy to have rendered her so happy.
"I love to see you, little Mabel," he said, "and that is why I shall shut up my workshop on Midsummer-day, and go out to the common when you are crowned 'Queen o' the May.' I only wish the sky may be as blue—as blue—as your eyes are, Mabel!" And then the crooked little cobbler stammered and blushed at his own forwardness in paying such a compliment to the prettiest maiden in the land.
But little Mabel said, "I will watch out for you, Caspar. I shall care for nobody on all the green so much as you."
Caspar could scarcely quite believe little Mabel when she said this; yet he was greatly touched by her kindness, and he promised to go and look at her from afar.
When Midsummer-day dawned over that old city the weather was beautiful—the sky, as blue as Mabel's eyes; and young and old flocked out to bask in the sunshine, and enjoy the games and the merry-making. Even the king sallied forth from his castle, accompanied by his courtiers, to favour with his presence the time-honoured custom of crowning the May-queen.
When he beheld little Mabel he exclaimed, "What a lovely maiden, fit to be a princess!"
Caspar was standing quite near, and heard it with his own ears. He expected after that to see Mabel drop a curtsey to the king. But no, the little maiden looked straight at him—poor Caspar—instead, and with her queen's flowery wand, pointed down to her bonnie crimson shoes.
The cobbler of Cobweb Corner was becoming dazed with happiness. Curious thoughts about his fairy-godmother crept into his head; strange thrills of pleasure and of pain shot through his dwarfish frame, and turned him well-nigh sick with emotion. It seemed to Caspar that he had grown older and younger in that one summer day. He felt giddy, and suddenly longed for his quiet attic in Cobweb Corner.
He stole silently away, and had left the crowd behind him on the Common, when he suddenly became aware of a tiny hand slipped into his own; and, looking down to the ground, observed a dainty pair of red shoes tripping lightly by his side. "What! little Mabel?"
"I just wanted to leave when you would leave, Caspar. For there was nobody on all the green I cared for so much as you."