"Oh! I declare, it is the young Prince of Silver-country; only he has grown so tall! He has been growing all these years, and is quite a young man. And I ought to have been growing too; but I am left behind, only a child still: if, indeed, I ever come to stop being an old woman!" "Will you tell me, my good woman," said the young prince, "if you have heard of any person who has lost a little gold key in this forest. I have found--" Pet screamed with delight at these words. "Oh, give it to me, give it to me!" she implored. "It is mine! It is mine!" The prince gave it to her, and no sooner did it touch her hand than the clock ran down, and Pet was released from her imprisonment in the old woman. Instantly the young prince saw before him a lovely young maiden of his own age, for Pet had really been growing all the time though she had not known it. The old woman also stared in amazement, not knowing where the lady could have come from, and the prince begged Pet to tell him who she was, and how she had come there so suddenly. Then all three, the prince, Pet, and the old woman, sat upon the trunk of a tree while Pet related the story of her life and its adventures. The old woman was so frightened at the thought that another person had been living in her for seven years that she got quite ill; however, the prince made her a present of a bright gold coin, and this helped to restore her peace of mind. "And so you lived a whole month among us and we never knew you?" cried the prince, in astonishment and delight. "Oh, I hope we shall never part again, now that we have met!" "I hope we shan't!" said Pet; "and won't you come home with me now and settle with my Government? for I am dreadfully afraid of it." So he lifted Pet up on his horse, and she sat behind him; then they bade good-by to the old woman, promising not to forget her, and rode off through the forests and over the fields to the palace of the kings and queens of Goldenlands. Oh, dear, how delighted the people were to see their little queen coming home again. The Government had been behaving dreadfully all this long time, and had been most unkind to the kingdom. Everybody knew it was really Pet, because she had grown so like her mother, whom they had all loved; and besides they quite expected to see her coming, as messengers had been sent into all the corners of the world searching for her. As these messengers had been gone about eight or nine years, the people thought it was high time for Queen Pet to appear. The cruel Government, however, was in a great fright, as it had counted on being allowed to go on reigning for many years longer, and it ran away in a hurry out of the back door of the palace, and escaped to the other side of the world; where, as nobody knew anything of its bad ways, it was able to begin life over again under a new name.