"Oh, you dear delicious little gate-keeper!" exclaimed the princess, seizing him in her arms, and tossing him up and down. "I see how it is: you will let me out--you will do it. Oh, I am sure you will!"
"Not so fast, my dear," said the little man, struggling to free himself. "Put me down, and I will tell you all about it. But first of all you must promise to keep the whole matter a profound secret: if you should tell any one, the plan would fail."
"Oh, I can keep a secret," said the princess, smiling, and beginning to feel quite happy again.
"Well, then," said the gate-keeper, seating himself by the fountain--which was not a fountain at all, but only an imitation very skillfully done in aquamarine--"you are to stay here a year. Then, when the spring comes you are to be changed into a primrose, if you will consent to it, and grow up out of the ground like other flowers. Hidden deep within the woods, you must wait patiently, through sunshine and rain, till some one finds you, and breaks you from the stem. Whoever he may be, rich or poor, young or old, if he loves the flower well enough to take it home, and place it carefully in a vase of water, he will have the power of transforming it into a mortal, and you will be restored to your home in a world where the sun shines and where flowers grow."
"Dear! dear!" said the princess, "I suppose I must consent, if that is the only way of making my escape. But what if no one comes into the woods, and what if no one cares enough for the primrose to pick it?"
"Then it will wither on its stem, and you must come back to us, and be the Princess Bébè for another year."
The trial which was proposed to her seemed a very hard one, and the year which followed seemed very long. If it had not been for the kindness of the gate-keeper, who amused her by showing her all the curiosities which the kingdom of the mineral-workers contained, and explaining how the gems were cleaned and polished and cut, I am afraid the poor Princess Bébè would have died of homesickness long before spring. But at last the year came to an end, as all years must, and she started on her journey into the upper world.
Day after day she struggled through the earth, pushing her roots deep down into the soil, and stretching her slender leaf-like arms up into the sunlight. The dew came and kissed the little flower-bud with sweet moist lips, the sunshine warmed it, and the south wind sang to it, until at last a yellow primrose opened its eyes in the dark woods.