Princess Bella was quite fond of children and was sorry when her little friend left her at the door of her palace. She gave a sigh when he went away, and that drew the bird’s attention.
“What makes your Royal Highness sigh so deeply? Is there anything that you have lost?” asked the bird.
“Oh, I have lost nothing, but I am sorry for that child,” replied Princess Bella. “Don’t you think he was a little too sad to say good-by to me this morning?”
“No, Princess,” said the bird, “I think he was just sad enough. In the summer he comes here every morning to play with us, and when the weather does not permit him to come we soon forget his absence. Everybody has a part to play in this world, and we birds, as a general thing, get only a peep at what people are doing; therefore we do not know very much. But he, I can tell your Royal Highness, has been very useful in a certain way both to you and to me; and to-morrow morning, if I don’t forget, I will come again and tell you the part he has played.”
The Princess was so astonished at this speech that she did not reply, and the bird, wishing to remain incognito, flew away through the gathering storm.
The next morning, to be sure, just as day dawned, Princess Bella was awakened by a tap at a window, which she soon recognized as that of her little bird.
“To continue the story of yesterday,” said the bird, “I must remind your Royal Highness that for some time past that child has known a dreadful secret which he has not told either you or me. The father of that child’s best friend is a wizard who has a hot, bad temper. This wizard went out yesterday just before you rose, and he saw that child coming directly toward his house. Then he remembered that some days before he had sent certain roots and herbs to be planted on a hill near the castle. He went to that hill, made the child his prisoner, and changed him into an owl; so that if you ask me at midnight, where he is, I shall not be able to tell your Royal Highness for some hours.”
“What can I do?” exclaimed Princess Bella, very much distressed. “You know I have not a grain of magic in my composition.”
“Oh but,” said the bird, “the poor owl knows that you would do what you could, and he is waiting as patiently as he can for your Royal Highness to give him a happy surprise.”
This speech consoled Princess Bella very much. She at once jumped out of bed, dressed herself, and came downstairs, when her two little brothers waited for her and burst into laughter.
“What is the matter?” said Princess Bella.
“Why, two things, sister,” was the reply. “One is that the old housekeeper thought we were lost, and the other is that Christine listened at our door when we were talking with the good spirit in the garden, and she peeped through the window last night to see if we had gone to sleep.”
To the immense surprise of the two children, the bird had flown into the room while they were talking, and stood calmly on the table and answered, “Well, Christine?”
“Well,” she answered, “I must get the slippers of this princess. Josephine turned me into an ugly black wolf when I was in the prince’s gardens, but these do not match at all with the others.”
“You must have seen the Prince only in a dream, Christine,” said Princess Bella.
Christine said no more, and faded away as Christine always did, and when she believed nobody was looking. Now it was past time, Princess Bella went to the Queen Mother and told her what she had done.
The Queen was as surprised as grateful at such a proof of gratitude from a child. The very first thing she did was to bid farewell to the court.
“Well, after all, my dear cousin,” said she. “It is very easy to know the man who is supposed to be in our gardens; it is quite a different matter with his mother.”
Princess Bella went into the queen’s bedroom, took two slippers off the beautiful bed, and one slipper off each of the others that stood in her wardrobe. These slippers when put in a basket, and handed to the bird by Princess Bella, were very much amused.
Princess Bella’s friends, the bird and her two brothers, when the slippers were on her feet, left the pavilion that had the light and entered the narrow worn-out passages that led to the bedroom of the good and virtuous Josephine and to that of the bad Christine, who followed the examples of very bad people in all their mischievous stories.
“You must go in, pars frère and Monsieur Le Nôtre,” said Princess Bella to the bird, and you must speak about slippers with my motive,—is it understood?”
“Oh yes!” answered the two brothers. “And you?”
“I am going into the Queen Mother’s room; you can let me know by some sign if everything has gone well or ill or even not at all.”
The four children each played their part; Josephine had the surprise of her life, to find herself in the Queen Mother’s room, for she really believed she was going to Christine’s.
Christine was informed by her attendant, the bird of Cinderella, what had taken place.
“Aha! we are undone!” said she, the day afterward, “but consolation is at hand,” she added, when she had her brother restored to her.
Nothing could be done but wait patiently for chiefly for the two sides’ letters.
The day after they were sent by Mademoiselle Souci to Baldaqua, Princess Bacinette came and begged several thousand pardons for having been parties in her mother’s designs. Baldaqua promised to forgive her for that and not to remember that she herself had helped her mother before. Princess Bacinette and her father in the name of others, went to them that day, the next, the next after, and for their convenience did not miss a single day for many months.
“There is nothing to growl against the Civil Marriager,” said Baldaqua, who had very often it is true by remote means, been always so ready to forget himself. So that their minorities, that of Monsieur Aube d’Hivert alone, perhaps prevented, and she had soon the consolation of seeing him.
Monsieur aube d’Hivert in the meantime came, as the faithful loving heart of Josephine deserved so pleasant necessary to appear, and also talented everything rather than a princely heart felt in doing. But even if propelled as far backwards as antiquity, it would have done so; during the last two centuries, father being too implicit an article, settled on a burden, enough in themselves to fill a whole bookseller’s table. But for Josephine, Bacinette’s sister, Madame d’Hivert could never have reached such pleasant.