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And today, Kakari, you shall go to the palace. But she did not answer him; the answer was in her eyes. They were moist, brimming over with tears, weeping! Memory had stirred her and roused the sorrows in her soul. Then she said: "Nay, I cannot go, O beloved prince." But the din and clamor of the arriving company drowned her low, faint voice, and she went to the king's splendid palace!

The queen saw her and said: And what princess might this be? Her daughter saw her and said: For shame!! And one of the palace handmaids saw her and said: Have you looked at the princess's threadbare robe? No matter for her—she is one of those who have no need of clothes, for she is of the brides of the sea! But

the prince silenced them in fierce anger and wrath, and said:

"The princess has come disguised in these rags."

But the voices of mockery, if they grew fainter, never ceased; or if they ceased, it was only for a while. And whenever the prince heard them he flared up in anger, because they did not share his feeling for this princess, daughter of the water.

The days passed, the prince as we have described him, his kin as we have told, and his wife unchanged in her state, never casting off her hated, detested veil.

But the prince hoped and waited, and for the present he contented himself with hope and waiting.

And as he sat with the "bride of the sea," passing the evening in talk with her, he asked her

how long this hateful veil should be worn! She said: "There shall indeed be an appointed term for it, O prince—but wait a while now." He answered her: "Then let it be at the moon of the coming month, O beautiful princess!!"

The light of the full moon has come to its fullness in brightness and strength; now it fills the open wastes and washes the fields, and streams over the earth, flooding all that is upon it—even that chamber, and that bed!!

But where is Kakari? Where is the beautiful princess, daughter of the sea? ...She has vanished, for the veil was lifted from her!!