"It is difficult not to scratch when you're cleaning plate," Willie observed. "I sometimes help Simpkins, and there's only one spoon that he'll let me clean, for fear I should scratch; and that's quite an old one that doesn't matter. So I have to clean it over and over again. But go on about the princess."
"Well, then she offered her gold heart to a woman who seemed lonely and desolate; but the woman only cared for the hearts of men, and threw back the princess's in her face. And then somebody advised her to set it up for auction, to go to the highest bidder, as that was generally considered the correct thing to do with regard to well-regulated women's hearts; but she didn't like that suggestion at all. At last the poor princess grew tired of offering her treasure to people who didn't want it, and so she locked it up out of sight; and then everybody said that she hadn't a heart at all, and what a disgrace it was for a young woman to be without one."
"Not at all fair; but people aren't always fair on this side of the hills, darling."
"Always; and they are never hard or cold or unsympathetic. So the princess decided to leave the smoke and the furnaces, and to go to the country on the other side of the hills. She travelled down into the valley and right through it, and then across the hills beyond, and never rested till she reached the country on the other side."
"And what did she find when she got there?"
Elisabeth's eyes grew dreamy. "She found a fairy prince standing on the very borders of that country, and he said to her, 'You've come at last; I've been such a long time waiting for you.' And the princess asked him, 'Do you happen to want such a thing as a heart of real gold?' 'I should just think I do,' said the prince; 'I've wanted it always, and I've never wanted anything else; but I was beginning to be afraid I was never going to get it.' 'And I was beginning to be afraid that I was never going to find anybody to give it to,' replied the princess. So she gave him her heart, and he took it; and then they looked into each other's eyes and smiled."
But Willie's youthful curiosity was far from being satisfied. "What was the fairy prince like to look at?" he inquired.
"I don't know, darling; I've often wondered."
