Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/190

 "It is well. I will give you the hand of my daughter Lovely in honourable marriage."

Then, after due notice had been given, he went in state to his daughter's apartment to tell her with all the solemnity which the occasion demanded, that he had chosen for her a goodly husband whose claim upon her love was supported by a strong bodyguard of forty good youths.

But Lovely looked with a smile at her royal father, and then looked again with a laugh. "Why, father," she said, "this is no bold ambassador from the Island of Kodol or elsewhere; from King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich or any other stern-eyed monarch. It is a woman. Why, when he walks in the courtyard I think of a duck in the pond. When he speaks I think of the note of a flute. When he walks in the palace I think of the dance, and when he sits on the bench of white oak he presses his feet close together. His hands are lily white with taper fingers, and upon them the marks of rings are plainly to be discovered." Then Lovely laughed and laughed again, and the sound was not pleasant to Prince Vladimir, the Fair Sun of Kiev, who walked away to the window.

"I will prove her," he said, after pondering for a time. Then he left the apartment and came to the ambassador. "Will it please you," he said courteously, "to accept the challenge of my heroes to a shooting match?"

"I have longed for many things," was the quick reply, " ut for none so much as to receive such a