'Oh,' said the Cat, 'didn't you know? The moles you used to let out of the traps do the digging, and the birds you used to feed bring the seeds in their little beaks, and the mice you used to save from the palace mouse-traps do the weeding and raking with their sharp little teeth, and their fine, neat, needly claws.'
'But how did they get here?' asked the Princess.
'The usual way--swimming and flying,' said the Cat.
'Of me?' The great Cat drew herself up to her full height. 'Anyone would think, to hear you, that I was a _common_ cat.' And she was really cross for nearly an hour.
That was the only approach to a quarrel that the two ever had.
Sometimes, at first, the Princess used to say:
'How long am I to stay here, pussy-nurse?'
And the Cat always said in nurse's voice:
And the years went by, and each year found the Princess more good, and clever, and beautiful. And at last she was quite grown up.
'Now,' said the Cat briskly, 'we must get to work. There's a Prince in a kingdom a long way off, and he's the only person who can get you off this island.'
'He knows about _you_, but he doesn't know that he's the person to find you, and he doesn't know where you are. So now every night I must fly away and whisper about you in his ear. He'll think it's dreams, but he believes in dreams; and he'll come in a grand ship with masts of gold and sails of silk, and carry my Pretty away and make a Queen of her.'
'Shall I like that, pussy-nurse, do you think?' asked the Princess.
'Yes, very much indeed. But you wouldn't like it if it were any other King than this one, so it's just as well that it's quite impossible for it to _be_ any other.'
'Don't I tell you? In a ship, of course,' said the Cat.
'Aren't the rocks dangerous?' asked the Princess.
'Oh,' said the Princess, and grew silent and thoughtful.
That night the Cat got out its rolled-up wings, and unrolled them, and brushed them, and fitted them on; then she lighted a large lamp and set it in the window that looked out on the Perilous Sea.
'That's the beacon to guide the King to you,' she said.
'Won't it guide other ships here?' asked the Princess, 'with perhaps the wrong Kings on board--the ones I shouldn't like being Queen with?'
'Very likely,' said the Cat; 'but it doesn't matter: they'd only be wrecked. Serve them right, coming after Princesses that don't want them.'