Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/64

 was i' love wi' a Prince from a distant country. The Prince, so Mistress Nancy said, was visiting the Princess's city to study medicine."

"Like John!" interrupted Mehitable. Tis easy enough to see Nancy was telling ye her own story."

"Aye," nodded Charity soberly, "easy enough, now, to see that; but not so easy when I was little. Well—'tis thus she told the story. This Princess and the Prince were very happy until another maid from a distant country came a-visiting and she, too—so the Princess thought—fell in love wi' the Prince. She was a flighty maid, not fine and strong and wonderful as was the Prince, not good enough for him; but she had the art o' making young men to like her and one day the Princess caught her own young man, the Prince, smiling at her, walking and talking, too, and she was very angry, then. She said naught, however, and time passed until came the eve o' a masked ball. The Prince told the Princess he would come to that ball masked as Night, in somber garb o' black, so she went as Starlight, in gown o' silver.

"When the Princess arrived, she looked most eagerly around for the Prince, and at last she spied him at the far end of the garden. She knew him at once, despite his mask, for he was the only one i' black. Thus she went to him confidingly; but when she drew near she saw"