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                          _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

                         DEAR ENEMY
                         DADDY LONG LEGS
                         JUST PATTY
                         PATTY AND PRISCILLA
                         THE FOUR POOLS MYSTERY
                         JERRY
                         MUCH ADO ABOUT PETER

                                 LONDON
                          HODDER AND STOUGHTON

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                                  THE
                             WHEAT PRINCESS

                                   By
                              JEAN WEBSTER
        Author of 'Daddy Long Legs,' 'Just Patty,' 'Dear Enemy'


                          HODDER AND STOUGHTON
                         LIMITED        LONDON

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                O. HENRY

        "The time is coming, let us hope, when the whole
        English-speaking world will recognise in O. HENRY one
        of the greatest masters of modern fiction."

                                                        STEPHEN LEACOCK.

                   HODDER & STOUGHTON publish all the
                   books by O. HENRY in their famous
                             Popular Series

                         THE FOUR MILLION
                         THE TRIMMED LAMP
                         SIXES AND SEVENS
                         STRICTLY BUSINESS
                         ROADS OF DESTINY
                         CABBAGES AND KINGS
                         HEART OF THE WEST
                         THE GENTLE GRAFTER
                         OPTIONS
                         WHIRLIGIGS
                         THE VOICE OF THE CITY
                         ROLLING STONES

                                 Cloth
                      LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON

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                                PROLOGUE


IF you leave the city by the Porta Maggiore and take the Via
Praenestina, which leads east into the Sabine hills, at some thirty-six
kilometers' distance from Rome you will pass on your left a grey-walled
village climbing up the hillside. This is Palestrina, the old Roman
Praeneste; and a short distance beyond--also on the left--you will find
branching off from the straight Roman highway a steep mountain road,
which, if you stick to it long enough, will take you, after many
windings, to Castel Madama and Tivoli.

Several kilometers along this road you will see shooting up from a bare
crag above you a little stone hamlet crowned by the ruins of a
mediaeval fortress. The town--Castel Vivalanti--was built in the days
when a stronghold was more to be thought of than a water-supply, and
its people, from habit or love, or perhaps sheer necessity, have lived
on there ever since, going down in the morning to their work in the
plain and toiling up at night to their homes on the hill. So steep is
its site that the doorway of one house looks down on the roof of the
house below, and its narrow stone streets are in reality flights of
stairs. The only approach is from the front, by a road which winds and
unwinds like a serpent and leads at last to the Porta della Luna,
through which all of the traffic enters the town. The gate is
ornamented with the crest of the Vivalanti--a phoenix rising out of the
flame, supported by a heavy machicolated top, from which, in the old
days, stones and burning oil might be dropped upon the heads of the
unwelcome guests.

The town is a picturesque little affair--it would be hard to find a
place more so in the Sabine villages, it is very, very poor. In the
march of the centuries it has fallen out of step and been left far
behind; to look at it, one would scarcely dream that on the clear days
the walls and towers of modern Rome are in sight on the horizon. But in
its time Castel Vivalanti was not insignificant. This little hamlet has
entertained history within its walls. It has bodily outfaced robber
barons and papal troops. It has been besieged and conquered, and, alas,
betrayed--and that by its own prince. Twice has it been razed to the
ground and twice rebuilt. In one way or another, though, it has
weathered the centuries, and it stands to-day grey and forlorn,
clustering about the walls of its donjon and keep.

Castel Vivalanti, as in the middle ages, still gives the title to a
Roman prince. The house of Vivalanti was powerful in its day, and the
princes may often be met with--not always to their credit--in the
history of the Papal States. They were oftener at war than at peace
with the holy see, and there is the story of one pope who spent four
weary months watching the view from a very small window in Vivalanti's
donjon. But, in spite of their unholy quarrels, they were at times
devout enough, and twice a cardinal's hat has been worn in the family.
The house of late years has dwindled somewhat, both in fortune and
importance; but, nevertheless, Vivalanti is a name which is still
spoken with respect among the old nobles of Rome.

The lower <DW72>s of the hill on which the village stands are well
wooded and green with stone-pines and cypresses, olive orchards and
vineyards. Here the princes built their villas when the wars with the
popes were safely at an end and they could risk coming down from their
stronghold on the mountain. The old villa was built about a mile below
the town, and the gardens were laid out in terraces and parterres along
the <DW72> of the hill. It has long been in ruin, but its foundations
still stand, and the plan of the gardens may easily be traced. You will
see the entrance at the left of the road--a massive stone gateway
topped with moss-covered urns and a double row of cone-shaped cypresses
bordering a once stately avenue now grown over with weeds. If you pause
for a moment--and you cannot help doing so--you will see, between the
portals at the end of the avenue, some crumbling arches, and even, if
your eyes are good, the fountain itself.

Any contadino that you meet on the road will tell you the story of the
old Villa Vivalanti and the 'Bad Prince' who was (by the grace of God)
murdered two centuries ago. He will tell you--a story not uncommon in
Italy--of storehouses bursting with grain while the peasants were
starving, and of how, one moonlight night, as the prince was strolling
on the terrace contentedly pondering his wickednesses of the day, a
peasant from his own village up on the mountain, creeping behind him,
quiet as a cat, stabbed him in the back and dropped his body in the
fountain. He will tell you how the light from the burning villa was
seen as far as Rocca di Papa in the Alban hills; and he will add, with
a laugh and a shrug, that some people say when the moon is full the old
prince comes back and sits on the edge of the fountain and thinks of
his sins, but that, for himself, he thinks it an old woman's tale.
Whereupon he will cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the dark
shadow of the cypresses and covertly cross himself as he wishes you,
'_A revederla_.'

You cannot wonder that the young prince (two centuries ago) did not
build his new villa on the site of the old; for even had he, like the
brave contadino, cared nothing for ghosts, still it was scarcely a
hallowed spot, and lovers would not care to stroll by the fountain. So
it happens that you must travel some distance further along the same
road before you reach the gates of the new villa, built anno domini
1693, in the pontificate of his Holiness Innocent XII. Here you will
find no gloomy cypresses: the approach is bordered by spreading
plane-trees. The villa itself is a rambling affair, and, though
slightly time-worn, is still decidedly imposing, with its various
wings, its balconies and loggia and marble terrace.

The new villa--for such one must call