struggling, breathless boy, in an agony of terror, "I can't, I CAN'T; it has grown to my fingers; it sticks to them! Oh dear! dear! what shall I do? my fingers are being dragged through the keyhole! they are being stretched into strings! Oh help me! help me!"

The Queen rushed to the door, before which her son was kicking and writhing. But his efforts to escape were fruitless. To her horror, the Queen beheld each joint tapering and elongating itself, till it could pass through the narrow aperture; now, the wrists had disappeared; now, in a twinkling, the elbows were out of sight; now the upper portion of the arm was gone.

"Surely," thought Ninnilinda, "she will never attempt to drag his head through." But she was wrong; the boy's hair was rapidly sucked through the keyhole, and the head began to lengthen itself out for the purpose of following.

This was too much for endurance. The Queen strove with all her power to open the

door; but it was as fast as if it formed part of the original wall. Then, in her dismay, she seized hold of the body of the Prince, for the purpose of dragging him back; but a miserable, elongated drawl from the other side of the door conveyed the boy's entreaty that she would not hurt him.

"Never mind what he says, niece," cried the voice of the Fairy. "Hold his legs tight, and in half a minute I shall have finished my work, and wound him up!"

The Queen was so transfixed with dismay, that she stood motionless, watching the receding body of the Prince, till the soles of his feet caught her despairing eyes.

"There! 'tis done now," cried the Lady Abracadabra. "He makes a very compact ball, and will travel well!"

The Queen, in her despair, now rushed to the door leading into the flower-garden; but she was too late.

The Fairy had reached the extremity of the terrace, kicking before her something

120 THE HOPE OF THE KATZEKOPFs.

that seemed like a ball of rope; but which ball was, in fact, the convoluted form of Prince Eigenwillig.

In another moment, the lady Abracadabra and the Hope of the Katzekopfs had bounded over the parapet, and were lost to view; and Queen Ninnilinda fell, for the first time in her life, into a real swoon.

CHAPTER V.

The Heirs on their Travels.

"O see ye not yon narrow road,

So thick beset with thorns and briers?

That is the path of righteousness,

Though after it but few inquires.

"And see ye not that braid, braid road,

That lies across that lily leven?

That is the path of wickedness,

Though some call it the road to heaven.

"And see ye not that bonny road,

That winds about the fernie brae ?

That is the road to fair Elf-land,

Where thou and I this night maun gae."

Thomus the Rhymer.