Page:The Royal Marriage.pdf/2



"! mother, she looked so beautiful."

"Yes, yes," said the aged crone, letting the thread slip from her fingers, while the ear suddenly missed the monotonous sound of the spinning-wheel, that had been heard beneath the green oak since early morning. "Fine feathers make fine birds; what was she dressed in?"

"I do not know," said the child, "I only looked at her face. I should be as happy as a queen if she would only let me wait upon her."

"It would be a thousand pities not to make you happy," exclaimed a singularly sweet voice; and, putting aside the rose bushes, whose wild leaves fell around her in a fragrant shower, a very lovely girl stepped before them.

"And, so it would make you as happy as a queen to wait upon me. Why, I shall be a queen myself; at least, all the fortune-tellers assert that such will be my fate. What do you say, good mother, will you let your little girl come with me?"

Mimi’s face brightened with eagerness; she looked alternately at the brilliant stranger, and at her grandmother, the red round cheek growing redder every moment.

"I will take great care of her," continued the youthful Princess, for such she was. "She shall be my little bower B