Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/40

 about her ability to hold the Prince to her. She wondered what he was like. She had never met him but the old Amah had contrived to behold him and she had reported that he was very comely, though seemingly weak, and of a vacillating nature.

The day was fair, the sky was clear. She peeped discreetly through the curtains of her chair. The runner clanging the gong hopped along like a giant toad arrayed in rich silks, shouting incessantly, "Make way! Make way!"

An itinerant peddler with his portable kitchen set up in the road, with bowls of steaming rice and boiled turnips displayed temptingly, forgot his customers as he watched the elegant procession, his mouth hanging open foolishly.

She wondered what he would say, if she gave orders for her chair carriers to halt, and then stepped down daintily to sample his wares. How quickly she had become a personage! She who had known no lovers, now could draw the attention of a thousand men by merely throwing back the curtains of her chair. She smiled. If only she had carried her lute with her so that she might play and sing softly. Truly it was a day for songs of rejoicing. She was in complete accord with everything.

Some there are who say that, so sad was she at parting from her family, tears fell like rain as she stepped into the sedan chair, and because it was mid-winter and even the North wind was saddened by her going, the coldness was extreme. And her tears froze to ice. But this is incredible, for when she went it was spring, the