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                          By Margaret Sherwood


    =THE PRINCESS POURQUOI.= Illustrated. $1.50.

    =THE COMING OF THE TIDE.= With frontispiece. 12mo, $1.50.

    =DAPHNE=: An Autumn Pastoral. 12mo, $1.00.


                        HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK




                                  THE

                           PRINCESS POURQUOI

                             [Illustration]




           [Illustration: EVERY DAY HER BIG EYES GREW WISER]




                              THE PRINCESS
                                POURQUOI

                                   BY

                           MARGARET SHERWOOD

                              ILLUSTRATED

                             [Illustration]


                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                      HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY
                               MDCCCCVII




           COPYRIGHT 1902 AND 1903 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

                COPYRIGHT 1907 BY THE S. S. McCLURE CO.

           COPYRIGHT 1906 AND 1907 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

                  COPYRIGHT 1907 BY MARGARET SHERWOOD


                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

                        _Published October 1907_




                                CONTENTS


    THE PRINCESS POURQUOI                                          1

    THE CLEVER NECROMANCER                                        43

    THE PRINCESS AND THE MICROBE                                  81

    THE SEVEN STUDIOUS SISTERS                                   131

    THE GENTLE ROBBER                                            175


    [asterism] The Princess Pourquoi, The Princess and the Microbe,
    and The Seven Studious Sisters appeared first in _Scribner's
    Magazine_, The Clever Necromancer in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and
    The Gentle Robber in _McClure's Magazine_. They are here
    reprinted by the courteous permission of the publishers of those
    magazines.




                             ILLUSTRATIONS


    EVERY DAY HER BIG EYES GREW WISER                 _Frontispiece_

    SIDE BY SIDE THEY WALKED TOGETHER                             22

    "IT'S GOT TO BE KILLED," SAID THE PRINCESS STURDILY          101

    "WHAT!" THUNDERED HIS MAJESTY                                142

    CAME RIDING FROM ALL PARTS OF THE KINGDOM                    148

    HE BEGAN TO WEAR THE LOOK OF THOSE WHO SEE MORE
        THAN MEETS THE EYE                                       185

    FOR SOME HALF SMILED AND HID THEIR SMILES AS
        BEST THEY COULD                                          203

    A GLIMPSE OF AN HERETIC BEING BURNED TO DEATH                210




                         THE PRINCESS POURQUOI




                                  THE

                           PRINCESS POURQUOI

                             [Illustration]


Once upon a time, in a country very far away, a new princess was born.
As is usual in such cases, the King, her father, and the Queen, her
mother, held a great christening feast, to which were invited all the
crowned heads for miles around, all the nobility of their own kingdom,
and the fairies whose good wishes were considered desirable. In the
middle of the ceremony, as is also customary, a very angry little old
lady, with a nose like a beak, burst into the room.

"May I ask why I was not invited?" she demanded. "These are here," and
she pointed to the fairy who rules the hearts of men, and to the fairy
who rules circumstance. She herself was the fairy who rules men's minds.

"You!" stammered his Majesty. "Why, it is only a girl. We--we thought
you would be offended. Later, if a son should be born"--

"You thought!" shrieked the enraged little creature, gathering her
shoulder-shawl about her. "You thought nothing whatever about it. I am
insulted, and I shall be revenged. Before anything yet has been given to
this child I shall curse her"--

"Oh!" begged the crowned heads and the nobility.

"Yes," said the fairy, stamping and growing angrier, "I shall curse her
with a _mind_."

"Anything but that," groaned his Majesty.

"Not that for a woman-child," moaned the mother, from under her silken
coverlid.

"Yes," said the fairy, and her wicked black eyes snapped over her
withered red cheeks. "She is a woman-child, and yet she shall think. She
shall be alien to her own sex, and undesired by the other. She shall ask
and it will not be given her. She shall achieve and it shall count her
for naught. Men shall point the finger at her like this" (and she
pointed one skinny forefinger at the King), "and shall whisper, 'There
goes the woman with brains, poor thing!' As for your Majesty, in her
shall you find your punishment. She shall think what you do not know,
and divine what you cannot find out. Now," added the wicked fairy,
turning to the two godmothers who stood by the child's cradle, "see if
you, with all your giving, can do anything to lessen the curse that I
have spoken," and she rushed away like a whirlwind, leaving every face
dismayed.

The fairy who rules circumstance stood by the cradle and spoke. Her face
was the face of one who wavers two ways