"Oh, how lovely," said the queen. "What a pity you interrupted her, dear. What's the matter?"
"You'll know soon enough," said the king. "Come, let's be happy while we may. Give me a kiss, little Melisande, and then go to nurse and ask her to teach you how to comb your hair."
"I know how?" said Melisande, "I've often combed mother's."
"Your mother has beautiful hair," said the king, "but I fancy you will find your own a little less easy to manage."
And, indeed, it proved to be just as the king said. The princess's hair began by being a yard long? and it grew another inch every night. If you know anything at all about the simplest sums you will see that in about five weeks her hair was about two yards long. This is a very inconvenient length. It trails in the floor and sweeps all the dust. And the princess's hair was growing an inch every night.
When it was three yards long the princess could not bear it any longer — it was so heavy and so hot — so she cut it all off, and then for a few hours she was comfortable.
But the hair went on growing, and now it grew twice as fast as before, so that in thirty-six days it was as long as ever. The poor princess cried with tiredness.
When she couldn't bear it anymore she cut her hair and was comfortable for a very little time. For the hair now grew four times as fast as at first, and in eighteen days it was as long as before, and she have it cut and so on, growing twice as fast after each cutting, till the princess would go to bed at night with her hair clipped short, and wake up in the morning with yards and yards and yards of golden hair flowing all about the room, so that she could not move without pulling her own hair, and nurse had to come and cut the hair off before she could get out of bed.
"I wish I was bald again," sighed poor Melisande. And still the hair grew and grew. Then the king said, "I shall write to my fairy godmother and see if something cannot be done."
So he wrote and sent the letter by a skylark, and by return of bird came this answer:
"Why not advertise
for a prince?
Offer the usual reward"
