live Queen Merveilleuse!" All the court repeated the shout. The two sisters of the young Queen came and threw their arms around her neck, and kissed her a thousand times. Merveilleuse was so happy she could not express her feelings. She cried and laughed at the same moment. She embraced one, talked to another, thanked the King, and in the midst of all this, recollected the captain of the guard to whom she was under so much obligation, and asked eagerly to see him, but they informed her he was dead. She felt his loss deeply.
When they sat down to table, the King requested her to relate all that had happened to her since the day he had issued such fatal orders respecting her. She immediately commenced the narrative, with the most admirable grace, and everybody listened to her attentively.
But whilst she was thus engrossed by the King and her sisters, the enamoured Ram saw the hour fixed for the return of the Princess pass by, and his anxiety became so extreme that he could not control it. "She will never return," he cried; "my miserable sheep's face disgusts her. Oh! too unfortunate lover, what will become of me if I have lost Merveilleuse? Ragotte! barbarous Fairy!—how hast thou revenged thyself for my indifference to thee!" He indulged in such lamentations for a long time, and then, finding night approach, without any signs of the Princess, he ran to the city. When he reached the King's palace, he asked to see Merveilleuse; but as everybody was now aware of her adventures, and by no means desired that she should return to the realms of the Ram, they harshly refused to admit him to her presence. He uttered cries and lamentations capable of moving any one except the Swiss guard who stood sentry at the palace gates. At length, broken-hearted, he flung himself on the ground, and breathed his last sigh.
The King and Merveilleuse knew nothing of the sad tragedy which had taken place. The King proposed to his daughter to mount a triumphal car, and show herself to all the city by the lights of thousands and thousands of flambeaux which illuminated the windows and all the great squares; but what a horrible spectacle for her, to see, as she issued from the palace-gates, her dear Ram stretched breathless on the pavement! She threw herself from the car, she ran to
