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... and the frog hopped into the room, and then
straight on - tap, tap - plash, plash - from the bottom of the room to
the top, till he came up close to the table where the princess sat.
'Pray lift me upon chair,' said he to the princess, 'and let me sit next
to you.'
As soon as she had done this, the frog said, 'Put your plate nearer to
me, that I may eat out of it.'
This she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, 'Now I
am tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.' And the
princess, though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him
upon the pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long.
As soon as it was light the frog jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went
out of the house.
'Now, then,' thought the princess, 'at last he is gone, and I shall be
troubled with him no more.'
But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same
tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said:
'Open the door, my princess dear,
Open the door to thy true love here!
And mind the words that thou and I said
By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'
And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon
her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did
the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was
astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her
with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen and standing at the head
of her bed.
He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had
changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till
some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from
her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights.
'You,' said the prince, 'have broken his cruel charm, and now I have
nothing to wish for but that you should go with me into my father's
kingdom, where I will marry you, and love you as long as you live.'
The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying 'Yes' to all
this; and as they spoke a brightly coloured coach drove up, with eight
beautiful horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness;
and behind the coach rode the prince's servant, faithful Heinrich, who
had bewailed the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment
so long and so bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst.
They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight
horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince's
kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great
many years. |