Page:Margaret sherwood--The Princess Pourquoi.djvu/66

 In Marmorante lived all manner of folk: a duke, a count, two marquises, and several squires; there were merchants many, with white-sailed ships that cut the waves; there were wool-combers and flax-beaters and haberdashers and marketmen; but most of all there were women: countesses, duchesses, and stately marchionesses; wives of merchants, wool-combers, haberdashers, flax-beaters,—women, women, women, maidens innumerable, and hosts of little girls. There were little girls with flaxen ringlets, little girls with long braids of yellow hair; dark-haired, slender maidens, maidens with white arms, maidens with blue eyes, brown eyes, or gray—every kind of maiden that ever lived, in life or in story.