That evening there was a great ball at the palace. And the Princess was dressed for it by her eleven maids of honor; and they took three hours and a half over it, and only had twenty minutes left in which to dress themselves. When they came back again, the Princess Gyldea was gone, and no one knew where she was. The little page guessed, but he did not say anything, because he did not want to go down the garden path by moonlight, when the fairies were about, and might turn him into a frog or something unpleasant. Besides, the dew was falling, and he had his best dancing-shoes on, with real diamond buckles.
Sure enough, at the bottom of the garden, the Princess was again looking through the hole in the hedge.
"Are you still digging potatoes?" she asked.
"The potatoes have still to be dug," answered the tall man.
"I want you to come and dance instead," said the Princess, imperiously.
"Then who will dig your potatoes?" he asked.
"Some one else will dig them," said the Princess, who always found that when she wanted anything done it came to pass without any trouble.
"There is no one else," said the tall man. "Go away and dance."
"There is some one else!" cried the Princess. "_I_ will dig the potatoes, and you shall go and dance!"
"You are being an absurd child," laughed the tall man. "Why, you are on the wrong side of the hedge, to begin with."
"But you could help me to get over the hedge," said the Princess, eagerly. "I want to do something new. I am _so_ tired of being a Princess. You really don't know how dull it is to be a Princess always."
"No," said the tall man, "I only know how dull it is to dig potatoes always, for some one else to eat. Go away and dance, you foolish child. Do you suppose you could dig potatoes in a dress like that?"
And the Princess looked down at her fine silken robes, and she went away up the garden path, more sadly than before.
"I have been walking in my garden," she said, when she found the King and the Queen and all the courtiers waiting for her, in the ballroom.
"She is so fond of flowers, the sweet child," said the Queen, trying to hide that she had been seriously alarmed; for the guests were beginning to arrive, and it would never do for them to suspect that anything unusual was happening.