60 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. [.

 

tower, and was ascended by a spiral staircase. The
Princesses were conducted up to a considerable height
from. the ground, until they came to a landing from
which doors opened right and left into two rooms,
one of which was appropriated to each of them. This
was the first real trouble they had had to endure, and
it was rendered worse by the fact of their being
separated for the first time in their lives. They wept
bitterly, and would have felt inclined to give way to
despair, if it had not been that their pride of birth
and the old courage of their race alike forbade them
to do so. .

So having cried as much as they thought neces-
sary, they each began to look about them, and then
discovered that not only was there only one wall
between their two rooms, but that, although this was
of a thick and substantial character, grates had been
let in at one or two places, for the purpose of ventila-
tion, through which they could without difficulty
converse from time to time. As this tower faced the
mountain-side down which the Princesses had de-
scended into the Giant’s country, the intelligent reader
will at once remark that the side windows of the
rooms in which the sisters were confined naturally
afforded a view right and left. It so happened that
Malvina had the right hand, Pettina the left hand
view, and each described to the other that which shesaw.

‘Pettina, my darling!’ said her elder sister, ‘I
can see miles and miles away; the tower is so high
that I almost lose my eyesight in the distance—it
seems endless.’ ;

‘But what do you see?’ asked the other.