Then all round was so much embracing and happiness that it is out of reach for tongue or pen to describe. For truly the Prince and his foster-sisters loved each other dearly, and could put no bounds upon their present contentment. As for the Prince and the one who had plucked out his heart, of no two was the saying ever more truly told, that they had lost their hearts to each other; nor was ever love in the world known before that carried with it such harmony as theirs. And so it all came about according to the Queen’s dream that the forester’s daughter wore the royal crown upon her head, and held the Prince’s heart in her hand. Long before he died the old King was made happy because the dream that he had feared so much had become true: and the forester’s wife was happy before she died: and as for the Prince and his wife and his foster-sisters, they were all rather happy: and none of them is dead yet. THE LUCK OF THE ROSES _TO_ CLEMENCE [Illustration] THE LUCK OF THE ROSES Not far from a great town, in the midst of a well-wooded valley, lived a rose-gardener and his wife. All round the old home green sleepy hollows lay girdled by silver streams, long grasses bent softly in the wind, and the half fabulous murmur of woods filled the air. Up in their rose-garden, on the valley’s side facing the sun, the gardener and his wife lived contentedly sharing toil and ease. They had been young, they were not yet old; and though they had to be frugal they did not call themselves poor. A strange fortune had belonged always to the plot of ground over which they laboured; whether because the soil was so rich, or the place so sheltered from cold, or the gardener so skilled in the craft, which had come down in his family from father to son, could not be known; but certainly it was true that his rose-trees gave forth better bloom and bore earlier and later through the season than any others that were to be found in those parts. The good couple accepted what came to them, simply and gladly, thanking God. Perhaps it was from the kindness of fortune, or perhaps because the sweet perfume of the roses had mixed itself in their blood, that her man and his wife were so sweet-tempered and gentle in their ways. The colour of the roses was in their faces, and the colour of the rose was in their hearts; to her man she was the most beautiful and dearest of sweethearts, to his wife he was the best and kindest of lovers.