Now the Princess was very timid, and as the Prince tarried long she grew frightened of being alone. So she stretched out her arms to a tree above her, and swung herself up that she might nestle amidst its branches. The foliage hid her slender limbs in their flowing draperies, but her exquisite face gleamed like a flower from a setting of glossy leaves, and was mirrored in the deep basin of the fountains. An ugly negress who came to fill her pitcher caught sight of its loveliness, and, since she had never gazed into a mirror believed it to be her own.
“Oh, how very handsome I am!” she murmured. “I am far too beautiful to do the bidding of any mistress. I will never draw water again.” And flinging the pitcher from her, she strutted home with the air of a peacock.
“Why have you come back empty-handed, Deborah?” inquired her mistress.
“I have seen my face in the fountain,” was the reply, “and I am much too lovely to fetch and carry like a poor slave.”
“Why, you are as ugly as sin!” her mistress retorted sharply. “Go back at once, and do as you are told.”
Deborah fetched another pitcher and went back to the fountains, grumbling the while. Again she caught sight of the Princess’s face reflected in the water, and again her swarthy features became distorted with pride.
“It is true!” she cried. “I am lovely as a dream. I will marry a prince, and live in a palace.” With this she threw down the second pitcher, and flounced into her mistress’s presence with such an assumption of dignity that that lady burst out laughing.
“If you only knew how ugly you are,” she cried, when she could speak, “you would never talk such ridiculous nonsense.” And daring her to return again without the water, she handed the mortified woman a third pitcher, and sent her back to the fountain.
The flower-like face of the fair Princess smiled back at the angry negress as she bent over the pool, and the poor creature grinned and ogled.