It chanced that it was early morning when Prince Hazen entered the palace grounds which he had left as a furnace boy. And you must know that, since his leaving, years had elapsed; for though he had believed himself to have stayed with the Merry Lad but one day, and with the Bookman but a few days, and but a little time on the hills singing songs, and in byways listening to the voices of Idleness, Strength, and the rest, and lingering in that fair home where the Dwarf had sent him, yet in reality with each one he had spent a year and more, so that now he was like someone else.
But the princess’s father’s palace garden was just the same, and Hazen entered by the east gate, which still no one could lock; and to be back within the garden was as wonderful as bathing in the ocean or standing on a high mountain or seeing the dawn. His horse bore him along between the flowering shrubs and the hollyhocks; he heard the fountains plashing and the song-sparrows singing and the village bells faintly sounding; he saw the goldfish and the water-lilies gleam in the pool, and the horses cantering about the paddock. And all at once it seemed to him that the day was his and the world was his, to do with them what he would.
So he galloped round the east wing of the palace, and looked up eagerly and longingly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the Princess Vista, watching. But when she saw him, she drew far back as if she were afraid. And Prince Hazen, as he bowed low in his saddle, could think of no word to say to her that seemed a word to be said. He could only cry up to her:—
“Oh, Princess Vista. Come down! Come down! Come down—and teach me about the whole world.”
He galloped straight to the great entrance way, and leaped from his horse, and no one questioned him, for they all knew by his look that he came with great authority. And he went to the king’s library, to that room which was as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree, and filled with mystery, and waited for her, knowing that she would come.
She entered the room almost timidly, as, once upon a time, the little furnace boy had entered. And when she saw him waiting for her before the window-seat, nothing could have exceeded her terror and her wonder and her delight. And now her eyes were looking down, and she did not ask him what he was doing there.
“Oh, Princess Vista,” he said softly, “I love you. I want to be loved!”
“Who are you—that want so much?” the princess asked—but her eyes knew, and her smile knew.
“Someone who has brought back your picture-book,” said Prince Hazen. “I pray you, teach it to me again.”
“Nay,” said the princess, softly, “I have taught you a wrong thing. For I have taught you that there are many suns. And instead there is only one sun, and it brings only one day—and that day is this day!”