The rain continued to pour down in torrents. Then in the midst of this gale, a loud knock was heard at the castle gate. When the old king opened the gate, he found a bedraggled but beautiful maiden standing there.
“Hello, sire,” began the maiden, who was drenched beyond belief. “I am a princess from a neighboring kingdom. I am afraid that I've been caught out in this storm and my horse has run off. I'm not able to return home until the storm ends. Could I please pass some time here?”
The king was a bit skeptical about this maiden's royal claims. How could she be a princess? She looked completely miserable. The water ran down from her hair and not-so-royal clothes into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels.
“How can I be so sure that you're a princess and not an impostor, wanting to steal something from my palace?” asked the king.
“You'll simply have to look in your heart and decide for yourself if I am a real princess or not,” answered the maiden with a soggy smile.
Well, the king wasn't any too certain that this maiden was a princess, but nevertheless he found her charming — and he wasn't, after all, an ogre. The poor girl was soaking wet, so he invited her in to dry off and warm up by one of the huge fireplaces.
Once inside, the king introduced the maiden to the queen and the prince. The prince, being a bit of a skeptic himself, took one look at the maiden and decided she most certainly could not be a princess. After all, she was drenched and bedraggled. No princess he'd ever interviewed during his travels had appeared like this.
