The twelve Princesses came in, their heads bowed down with weeping; all were fair, but ten of them were thin and pale, and wore white wimples over their heads like nuns; only the Princess Royal, who was the eldest, and Princess Lyneth, who was the youngest, had gold hair down to their feet, and were both so shiningly beautiful that the poor cobbler was altogether dazzled by the sight of them. The King looked out of the window and said: “Heigho! There is the full moon beginning to rise.” Then they all said grace, and sat down. But when the viands were handed round, all the Princesses sat weeping into their plates, and seemed unable to eat anything. For the pale and thin ones said: “To-night another of our sisters will lose her golden hair and her good looks, and be like us!” Therefore they wept. And Lyneth said: “To-night, either my dear sister or myself will fall under the spell!” Therefore she wept more than the other ten. But the Princess Royal sat trembling, and crying: “To-night I know that the curse is to fall upon me, and me only!” Therefore she wept more than all. Lubin sat, and watched, and listened, with his head bent down over his golden plate. “Which of these two shall I try most to save?” he thought. “How shall I test them, so as to know? If I could only tell which of them was to lose her hair to-night, then I might do something.” He saw that the youngest sister cried so much that she could eat nothing; but the Princess Royal, between her bursts of grief, picked up a morsel now and again from her plate, and ate it as though courage or despair reminded her that she must yet strive to live. When the meat-courses were over, the King said to the Princesses: “I wish you would try to eat a little pudding! Here is a very promising youth, who is determined by all that is in him that harm shall happen to none of you to-night.” “To-morrow he will be sent away with his ears cut short!” said Princess Lyneth; and her tears, as she spoke, ran down over the edge of her plate on to the cloth. When supper was over the Princess Royal came up to Lubin, and said: “Do not be angry with my sister for what she said! It has only been too true of many who came before; to-night, unless you do better than them all, I shall lose my hair. It has been a wonder to me how I have been spared so long, seeing that I am the eldest, and, as some will have it, the fairest. Will you keep a good guard over me to-night, as though you knew for certain that I am to be the one this time to suffer?” “I will guard you as my own life,” said Lubin, “if you will but do as I ask you.” “Pledge yourself to me, then, in this cup!” said she, and lifted to his lips a bowl of red wine. Over the edge of it her eyes shone beautifully; he drank, gazing into their clear depth. “Where am I to be for the night,” he asked of the King, “so that I may watch over the two Princesses?”