Once upon a time there lived a beautiful girl named Rapunzel. She lived... What's that, love? You know this story already? Well now, of course you do, child, but you don't know the whole tale, and nor do I. You may as well count all the water-drops in the sea as tell a whole life from end to end.
As I was saying, Rapunzel lived alone in a tower in the wilderness. The witch who had raised Rapunzel kept her in the tower for her own protection, as she thought, from the evils of the world. Rapunzel's only friend, besides the witch herself, was a girl from the city with whom the witch permitted Rapunzel to write letters. The witch did not wish her protegée to be wholly ignorant of writing or of the ways of the world, and the correspondent was of a good family and could be trusted only to write what was proper.
Rapunzel greatly enjoyed the correspondence with her friend, whose name was Edith. Over the years that they wrote, Edith and Rapunzel grew ever closer and dearer to each other. At first Rapunzel was content with her solitude, but as she began to recognize the joy of human contact, she became increasingly discontented with her captivity. She read her friend's lively stories of dinner parties and girlish sleep-overs with a mixture of vicarious pleasure and sickening envy. But always she hid her thoughts from the witch, for she knew that if her guardian suspected her of discontent, even this epistolary friendship would be denied her.
At last Rapunzel could not bear her solitude any longer. She wrote to Edith that she was going to make her escape, by jumping from the tower window; either she would survive and crawl away, or she would die. She thought that death might even be better, because then the witch could never find her.
Rapunzel's letter threw Edith into a panic. She wrote back as fast as she could, pleading Rapunzel not to do it. In her distress, she forgot to seal the letter before sending it. The witch, who would not open a sealed letter that was not addressed to her (because she was honorable, if misguided), saw that the letter was open, read it, and knew what Rapunzel was planning.
Perhaps recognizing that to deny Rapunzel her one companion would be to ensure her death, the witch did not cut Rapunzel off from Edith but even brought Edith to visit occasionally. She changed Rapunzel's diet, said a few magic charms, and generally paid more attention to Rapunzel's happiness, though she became no less obsessive and over-protective.
Rapunzel, of course, was furious that Edith had given away her secret. She was so angry that Edith even forgot what she had written in the letter and remembered only that she had left the letter unsealed. From then on, she was careful to seal all her letters so firmly that even Rapunzel could hardly get them open.
As you all know, the next time Rapunzel tried to escape from the tower, she didn't jump; she used her hair. But as long as she lived, Edith never knew that she had saved Rapunzel's life, for Rapunzel never told her.
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