tender feet bled so that even her steps were marked, she only laughed, and
followed him till they could see the clouds beneath them looking like a
flock of birds travelling to distant lands. While at the prince’s palace, and
when all the household were asleep, she would go and sit on the broad
marble steps; for it eased her burning feet to bathe them in the cold sea-
water; and then she thought of all those below in the deep.
Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing
sorrowfully, as they floated on the water. She beckoned to them, and then
they recognized her, and told her how she had grieved them. After that, they
came to the same place every night; and once she saw in the distance her
old grandmother, who had not been to the surface of the sea for many years,
and the old Sea King, her father, with his crown on his head. They stretched
out their hands towards her, but they did not venture so near the land as her
sisters did.
As the days passed, she loved the prince more fondly, and he loved her as
he would love a little child, but it never came into his head to make her his
wife; yet, unless he married her, she could not receive an immortal soul;
and, on the morning after his marriage with another, she would dissolve into
the foam of the sea.
“Do you not love me the best of them all?” the eyes of the little mermaid
seemed to say, when he took her in his arms, and kissed her fair forehead.
“Yes, you are dear to me,” said the prince; “for you have the best heart,
and you are the most devoted to me; you are like a young maiden whom I
once saw, but whom I shall never meet again. I was in a ship that was
wrecked, and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple, where several
young maidens performed the service. The youngest of them found me on
the shore, and saved my life. I saw her but twice, and she is the only one in
the world whom I could love; but you are like her, and you have almost
driven her image out of my mind. She belongs to the holy temple, and my
good fortune has sent you to me instead of her; and we will never part.”
