In every case there was some little defect , which showed the genuine article was not yet found . So he came home again in very low spirits , for he had wanted very much to have a true Princess . One night there was a dreadful storm ; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents . It was fearful ! There was a knocking heard at the Palace gate , and the old King went to open it . There stood a Princess outside the gate ; but oh , in what a sad plight she was from the rain and the storm ! The water was running down from her hair and her dress into the points of her shoes and out at the heels again . And yet she said she was a true Princess ! ` Well , we shall soon find that ! ' thought the old Queen . But she said nothing , and went into the sleeping-room , took off all the bed-clothes , and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed . Then she put twenty mattresses on top of the pea , and twenty eider-down quilts on the top of the mattresses . And this was the bed in which the Princess was to sleep . The next morning she was asked how she had slept . ` Oh , very badly ! ' said the Princess . ' I scarcely closed my eyes all night ! I am sure I do n't know what was in the bed . I laid on something so hard that my whole body is black and blue . It is dreadful ! '
Now they perceived XXXXX she was a true Princess , because she had felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down quilts .
So at from in into of on outside that to