"Yes, you are most dear to me," said the prince, "for you have the best heart of all of them. You are the most devoted to me, and you are like a young girl whom I once saw, but whom I fear I shall never find again. I was on board a ship which was wrecked, and the waves washed me ashore close to a holy temple, where several young maidens were in attendance. The youngest of them found me on the shore and saved my life. I saw her only twice. She was the only one I could love in the world; but you are like her, and you have almost driven her image out of my mind. She belongs to the holy temple, and therefore my good fortune has sent you to me. We shall never part."
"Alas! he does not know that I saved his life," thought the little mermaid. "I carried him across the sea to the forest where the temple stands. I sat behind the foam and watched for some one to come. I saw the beautiful maiden whom he loves more than me." And the mermaid sighed deeply, since she could not cry. "The maiden belongs to the holy temple, he told me. She will never come out into the world. They do not see each other any more. I am with him, and see him every day. I will cherish him, love him, and give my life for him."
But then she heard that the prince was to be married to the beautiful daughter of the neighboring king, and that was the reason he was fitting out such a splendid ship. The prince was going to visit the countries of the neighboring king, it was said; but it was to see the king's daughter, and he was going to have a great suite with him. But the little mermaid shook her head and smiled. She knew the prince's thoughts better than all the others.
"I must go," he had said to her. "I must see the beautiful princess. My parents demand it; but they will not compel me to bring her home as my bride. I cannot love her. She is not like the beautiful girl in the temple, whom you are so like. If, some day, I were to choose a bride, I would rather choose you, my dumb foundling with the eloquent eyes." And he kissed her rosy lips, played with her long hair, and laid his head on her heart, while she dreamed of human happiness and an immortal soul.
"You are not afraid of the sea, my dumb child," said he, as they stood on board the noble ship which was to carry him to the country of the neighboring king; and he told her about storms and calms, about strange fishes in the deep, and what the divers had seen there; and she smiled at his stories, for she knew, of course, more than any one else about the wonders of the deep.
In the moonlight night, when all were asleep except the steersman who stood at the helm, she sat on the gunwale of the ship, looking down into the clear water. She thought she saw her father's palace, and in the uppermost part of it her old grandmother, with the silver crown on her head, gazing up through the turbulent current caused by the keel of the ship.
