He knelt down before her and she took his head between her slim hands and pressed her mouth against his.

George, the squire, saw this, sighed deeply, and wondered:  “Why was my father only a miller?  What favours are granted to a knight like that!  But I hope the kiss won’t be the end of it all; for, unless she is a miserly fairy, there ought to be much more substantial pay for his services in store for him.”

But Clementine bestowed even a richer reward than he had expected upon her rescuer.  When she discovered that a lock of the brown hair on Wendelin’s left temple had turned grey during the conflict with the evil monster, she said to him:  ’All this land shall belong to you henceforth, and because you have grown grey in your courageous fight with evil, you shall be known from this time forward as Duke Greylock.  Every prince, yea, even the Emperor himself, will recognize the title which I confer upon you as my saviour, and when the race, of which you are to be the progenitor, is blessed with offspring, I will stand godmother to every first-born.  All the sons of your house from first to last, whether they be dark or fair, or brown, shall bear the grey lock.  It will be a sign unto your posterity that much good fortune awaits them.  My authority, however, is limited, and if at any time a higher power should hinder me from exerting my influence in behalf of one of your grandsons, then will the grey lock be missing from his head, and it will depend altogether on himself how his life unfolds itself.  One thing more.  Give me back my ring and take instead this mirror, which will always show to you and yours whatever you hold most dear, even when you are far away from it.”

“Then it will ever be granted to me to bring your face before my eyes, oh! lovely lady!” the knight exclaimed.

The fairy laughed and answered:  “No, Duke Greylock—­the mirror can only reflect the forms of mortals.  I know a wife awaiting you, whom you will rather see than any picture in the glass, even were it that of a fairy.  Receive my thanks once more! you are duke, enter now into your dukedom!”

With these words she disappeared.  A gentle rustling and tinkling was heard through the air, the waste ground covered itself with fresh green, the dry river beds filled with clear running water, and on their banks appeared blooming meadows, shady groves and forests.  The broken walls against the hillsides fitted themselves together, rose higher and supported once more the terraces covered with vine stocks and fruit-trees.  Villages and cities grew into form and lay cradled in the landscape.  Beautiful gardens bloomed forth, full of gay flowers, olive-trees, orange-trees, citron, and fig, and pomegranate-trees, each covered with its golden fruit of many-seeded apples.  In the neighbourhood of the grotto in which the fairy had been imprisoned a park of incomparable beauty grew into view, where brooks whispered and fountains played, and shady pergolas appeared, formed of gold and silver trellises, over which a thousand luxuriant creepers clambered, holding by their little tendril hands.