They were about to sit down and enjoy the tea when a dove flew in at the
window. It had a message tied round its neck. The message was for the
prince. It said, “Come home at once. Your father is ill.”
So the prince took off his cap with the big feather in it, and made a
bow. Then he went out of the window as suddenly as he had come.
Goldy said to herself, “I will go to the Gypsy and have my fortune told.
Perhaps I shall meet the prince again.”
So she put on her blue dress and sunbonnet, and went to the house where
the Gypsy lived, and knocked at the door.
The Gypsy said,
“Cross-Patch, pull the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin;
Cross-Patch, pull the latch,
Open the door, come in!”
Then Goldy opened the door and walked in.
“Will you tell my fortune?” she said.
The Gypsy liked Goldy, but to save her life she did not know how to tell
a very good fortune, so she said,
“Whatever you do your wish will come true,
So make it, I pray, and go quickly away!”
Goldy was wishing in her heart that she could see the prince, so she said
at once, “I wish I could fly.”
[Illustration: “_She knocked at the door_”]
Then the Gypsy touched her with her cane and her blue dress turned into a
shining pair of wings. She became a beautiful blue butterfly, and sailed
away and away in the sunshine. By and by she sailed into the king’s
garden.
The prince came out and cried, “Oh what a beautiful butterfly.”
Then Goldy told him what had happened and she said, “Go to the Gypsy and
see how I can be changed back again.”
Then the prince went in a hurry to the Gypsy, you may believe. When the
Gypsy heard him knock she cried as before,
“Cross-Patch, pull the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin;
Cross-Patch, pull the latch,
Open the door, come in!”
The prince opened the door and made his very best bow and said, “I wish
Goldy were changed back into a beautiful girl and standing here beside
me.”
The Gypsy nodded her head and soon a blue butterfly came floating in
through the window. The Gypsy said a magic verse, and changed the
butterfly back into the girl Goldy.
Then Goldy and the prince thanked the Gypsy. They were married at once,
and they went to live in the king’s palace. They were not so happy as
they had expected to be for Goldy cried all day, “I miss my sister
Brownie. Go and find my ugly little sister.”
The prince went out to look for Brownie. He traveled high and low but he
could not find her.
Then Goldy went out to look for her sister. She went to her old home and
she heard a voice say,
“I am as lonely as can be,
Sister Goldy, come to me!”
Then Goldy cried, “Here I am. Where are you hiding, little sister?”
Then Brownie told about her being changed into an ugly caterpillar, and
they went together to the Gypsy.
The Gypsy was sitting on her doorstep and Goldy cried out, “See, I will
give you this golden dish if you will change the caterpillar into my
little sister.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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