The transformed witch-queen gave a sweet, rippling laugh, and glanced at her reflection in the still waters of the spring. And then the girlish face frowned, for the image glaring up at her was that of a wrinkled, toothless old hag.
“I really must have that cloak,” sighed the girl; and then she turned and walked out of the lilac-grove and down the mountain-side toward the city of Nole.
The Princess Fluff was playing tennis with her maids in a courtyard of the royal palace, when Jikki came to say that a girl wished to speak with her Highness.
So the witch-queen came to her, in the guise of the fair young girl; and bowing in a humble manner before the princess, she said: “Please, your Highness, may I be one of your maids?”
“Why, I have eight already!” answered Fluff, laughing.
“But my father and mother are both dead; and I have come all the way from my castle to beg you to let me wait upon you,” said the girl, looking at the little princess with a pleading expression in her blue eyes.
“I am daughter of the Lord Hurrydole, and my name is Adlena,” replied the girl, which was not altogether a falsehood, because one of her ancestors had borne the name Hurrydole, and Adlena was one of her own names.
“Then, Adlena,” said Fluff, brightly, “you shall certainly be one of my maids; for there is plenty of room in the palace, and the more girls I have around me the happier I shall be.”
So Queen Zixi, under the name of Adlena, became an inmate of the king’s palace; and it was not many days before she learned where the magic cloak was kept. For the princess gave her a key to a drawer and told her to get from it a blue silk scarf she wished to wear, and directly under the scarf lay the fairy garment.
Adlena would have seized it at that moment had she dared; but Fluff was in the same room, so she only said: “Please, princess, may I look at that pretty cloak?”
“Of course,” answered Fluff; “but handle it carefully, for it was given me by the fairies.”
So Adlena unfolded the cloak and looked at it very carefully, noting exactly the manner in which it was woven. Then she folded it again, arranged it in the drawer, and turned the key, which the princess immediately attached to a chain which she always wore around her neck.