TWILIGHT LAND

“Tt is I,” said he, “and I am King of the Wind, and
ten times greater than the greatest of kings here below.
One day I saw you walking in your garden and fell in
love with you, and now I have come to ask you if you
will marry me and be my wife ?”

“But how can I marry you?” said the princess,
“without seeing you?”

“You shall see me,” said the soldier, “all in good
time. Three days from now I will come again, and will
show myself to you, but just now it cannot be. But if I
come, will you marry me?”

“Yes, I will,” said the princess, “for IJ like the way
you talk—that I do!”

Thereupon the soldier kissed her and said good-bye,
and then stepped out of the window as he had stepped in.
He sat him down upon his three-legged stool. ‘I wish,”
said he, “to be carried to such and such a tavern.” For
he had been in that town before, and knew the places
where good living was to be had.

Whir! whiz! Away flew the stool as high and higher
than it had flown before, and then down it came again,
and down and down until it lit as light as a feather in the
street before the tavern door. The soldier tucked his
feather cap in his pocket, and the three-legged stool under
his arm, and in he went and ordered a pot of beer and
some white bread and cheese.

Meantime, at the king’s palace was such a gossiping
and such a hubbub as had not been heard there for many
aday; for the pretty princess was not slow in telling how
the invisible King of the Wind had come and asked her
to marry him; and some said it was true and some said

it was not true, and everybody wondered and talked, and
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