“When he was outside the gate he looked up, and there was the coat of arms, not, as one would suppose from the careless glance usually given on entering the door of a palace, an ornamental escutcheon,--though of enormous size, as befitted the proportions of the edifice,--but the veritable arms themselves, which must have come down from a race of giants. Even if he could have worn them, it would have been impossible to take them down, as they were built into the wall of the house, and indeed seemed so essential a part of the structure, that it was, as it were, the face of the whole front, and could not be taken away but with the whole body. No wonder he felt for a moment disheartened, as he stood before the frowning portal; and perhaps he would have turned away in despair, had not his eye caught at that moment the merry faces of the maids of honor peering out, one over the other, at the side windows, and been drawn thus to a golden gleam at the great oriel window above, which was no other than the radiant face and arm of his princess; and although she disappeared the next minute, yet that light seemed for a moment to lift, from within, the whole dark castle, and to fall upon the device on the shield of the escutcheon, which was so effaced by time, that he had not observed it before. With a smile that would have become the stern face of the lord of the castle himself, he gayly turned, and walked down the long avenue, not for years to return, touching now and then the hilt of his sword, as one would pat the neck of his war-horse, which was pawing for him to mount; and well did that sword deserve his trust, for though it was his all, a king's ransom would not have purchased it. It had been the sword of his greatest ancestor, and possessed the charm of giving to the arm of its wearer the strength of every one it overcame. “But before he left, in return for the information the deluded suitors had so unwittingly given him, he told them of the arms, and the condition upon which the princess was to be won. Did he not fear that in his absence the prize might be carried off by one of these other suitors, so much more powerful in name than himself? Or had he a reason of his own for keeping them from their own dominions? “Now, each of these suitors was the ruler of one of the provinces of the kingdom, and each had been attracted thither by the fame of the princess's beauty. In the old time the kingdom had belonged to a race of giants, and the provinces were departments, bounded by no territorial limits, and the tenure upon which they were held was the right of the strongest. “In the mining district, the ancient ruler had been the mightiest smith. “In the forest he had swung the largest axe.