“I don’t care if anyone does,” cried Hazen. “I had to!”
“How fine you look now,” the princess could not help saying.
“You are beautiful as the whole picture-book!” he could not help saying back.
“Now, good-bye!” she called softly, and waved her hand.
“Good-bye—oh, good-bye!” he cried, and waved his plumed cap.
And then he left her, looking after him with her hair partly brushed, and he ran out the east gate which was never locked, and fared as fast as he could along the king’s highway, in all haste to grow wise and really good and loved and beautiful.
Hazen went a day’s journey in the dust of the highway, and toward nightfall he came to a deep wood. To him the wood seemed like a great hospitable house, with open doors between the trees and many rooms through which he might wander at will, the whole fair in the light of the setting sun. And he entered the gloom as he might have entered a palace, expecting to meet someone.
Immediately he was aware of an old man seated under a plane tree, and the old man addressed him with:—
“Good even, little lad. Do you travel far?”
“Not very, sir,” Hazen replied. “I am only going to find my fortune and to become wise, really good, beautiful, and loved.”