Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/104

24 the Salic law, then obeyed by all northern nations, prevented the succession of Obizza, his only daughter. The king imagined that he had found the means of perpetuating the succession in his family, because he had stipulated by the pragmatic sanction, that the first born son of his daughter should succeed in the government, to whomsoever she was married; but the princess had, notwithstanding all her accomplishments, the fault, so rarely met with in the fair sex, of feeling an aversion for the men. She had refused the most brilliant offers, and as her father tenderly loved her, and would not force her into a marriage where inclination had no part—making love a state business, as it had generally been with princesses, he at least wished to see her united to one whom she loved, but even this wish the young lady would not satisfy; her time had not yet arrived, and nature seemed to have refused to her the tender feeling she so generally lavishes upon her daughters.

Cruco nearly lost patience, and desiring a successor, he was obliged to allow every adventurer to try his chance, by besieging the heart of Obizza, promising at the same time, the town of Rugen as a reward. Such a bait attracted a number of fortune hunters from all quarters of the world to win her heart.