"I don't want to get accustomed to it," answered the princess. "I want to go home."
Then the king's face grew dark, and his pale blue eyes winked and blinked until they shone like two blazing lights.
"No one comes into our country to go away again," he said at length. "You are the Princess Bébè, adopted daughter of the king of the mineral-workers and the workers in stone, and with him you must stay for the rest of your life."
In spite of her diamond necklace, the princess was actually crying, although it is almost past belief that any one with a diamond necklace could cry; but the merry little mineral-workers, seeing the tears in her eyes, crowded around her, and tried their best to comfort her.
"Come into the garden," said one; and "Come to the gold chests," said another, "and see the diamonds."
"Diamonds!" exclaimed the princess, angrily and ungratefully: "I hate the very sight of them. But I would like to see the garden," she added, more gently.
Aleck, the gate-keeper, offered to act as escort, and the princess dried her eyes. He at least was her friend, she thought; and on the way to the garden, being very hungry, she ventured to ask him when they were to have breakfast.
"Breakfast!" he said. "Why, we don't have breakfasts here."
"Well, then, dinner," suggested the princess, meekly.
"Nor dinners either," replied the little man. "Why should we have dinners?"