“Very true, I daresay”, said the Prince; “but since all the others have tried, Katie may as well try too.”
“Katie”, he bawled out through the door; and Katie came trampling upstairs, and her wooden cloak clattered as if a whole regiment of dragoons were charging up.
“Now, you must try the shoe on, and be a Princess, you too,” said the other maids, and laughed and made game of her.
So Katie took up the shoe, and put her foot into it like nothing, and threw off her wooden cloak; and so there she stood in her gold kirtle, and it shone so that the sunbeams glistened from her; and, lo! on her other foot she had the fellow to the gold shoe.
So when the Prince knew her again, he grew so glad, he ran up to her and threw his arms round her, and gave her a kiss; and when he heard she was a King’s daughter, he got gladder still, and then came the wedding feast; and so,
Snip, snip, snover,
This story’s over.
THUMBIKIN
Once on a time there was a woman who had an only son, and he was no taller than your thumb; and so they called him Thumbikin.
Now, when he had come to be old enough to know right and wrong, his mother told him to go out and woo him a bride, for now she said it was high time he thought about getting a wife. When Thumbikin heard that, he was very glad; so they got their driving gear in order and set off, and his mother put him into her bosom. Now they were going to a palace where there was an awfully big Princess, but when they had gone a bit of the way, Thumbikin was lost and gone. His mother hunted for him everywhere, and bawled to him, and wept because he was lost, and she couldn’t find him again.
“Pip, Pip”, said Thumbikin, “here I am”; and he had hidden himself in the horse’s mane.