a terrible battle ensued; and Princess Charming knelt down, the while, by the roadside, and prayed long and earnestly for the success of the good Knight Weakhart.  But if he was weak of heart he was strong of arm, and at last, with a tremendous blow, he cut the ugly ogre’s head off; and the latter fell dead on the road, as an ogre naturally will when his head is taken off.  And then the Knight Weakhart was more afraid of being alone with the Princess than he had been of the giant.  But she rose up, and dried her tears, and thanked him.  And then the Princess and the Knight were in a grave quandary; for, of course, she could not go back to the den of that wicked witch, Cathel, and she had nowhere else to go.  And so Weakhart, with many tremblings, asked her to go with him to a cavern in the woods, where he had taken shelter.”

Here I glanced at Estella, and her face was pale and quiet, and the smile was all gone from it.  I continued: 

“There was nothing else for it; and so the poor Princess mounted in front of the Knight on his horse, and they rode off together to the cavern.  And there Weakhart fitted up a little room for the Princess, and made her a bed of the fragrant boughs of trees, and placed a door to the room and showed her how she could fasten it, and brought her flowers.  And every day he hunted the deer and the bear, and made a fire and cooked for her; and he treated her with as much courtesy and respect as if she had been a queen sitting upon her throne.

“And, oh! how that poor Knight Weakhart loved the Princess!  He loved the very ground she walked on; and he loved all nature because it surrounded her; and he loved the very sun, moon and stars because they shone down upon her.

Nay, not only did he love her; he worshiped her, as the devotee worships his god.  She was all the constellations of the sky to him.  Universal nature had nothing that could displace her for a moment from his heart.  Night and day she filled his soul with her ineffable image; and the birds and the breeze and the whispering trees seemed to be all forever speaking her beloved name in his ears.

“But what could he do?  The Princess was poor, helpless, dependent upon him.  Would it not be unmanly of him to take advantage of her misfortunes and frighten or coax her into becoming his wife?  Might she not mistake gratitude for love?  Could she make a free choice unless she was herself free?

“And so the poor Knight Weakhart stilled the beating of the fluttering bird in his bosom, and hushed down his emotions, and continued to hunt and cook and wait upon his beloved Princess.