“Yes, I know there is”, said the Princess, “for there came a magpie flying with a man’s bone, and let it fall down the chimney. I made all the haste I could to get it out, but all one can do, the smell doesn’t go off so soon.”
So the Giant said no more about it, and when night came, they went to bed. After they had lain awhile, the Princess said:
“There is one thing I’d be so glad to ask you about, if I only dared.”
“What thing is that?” asked the Giant.
“Only where it is you keep your heart, since you don’t carry it about you”, said the Princess.
“Ah! that’s a thing you’ve no business to ask about; but if you must know, it lies under the door-sill”, said the Giant.
“Ho! ho!” said Boots to himself under the bed, “then we’ll soon see if we can’t find it.”
Next morning the Giant got up cruelly early, and strode off to the wood; but he was hardly out of the house before Boots and the Princess set to work to look under the door-sill for his heart; but the more they dug, and the more they hunted, the more they couldn’t find it.
“He has baulked us this time”, said the Princess, “but we’ll try him once more.”
So she picked all the prettiest flowers she could find, and strewed them over the door-sill, which they had laid in its right place again; and when the time came for the Giant to come home again, Boots crept under the bed. Just as he was well under, back came the Giant.