Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/71

Rh Winter and Spring passed, and Summer came, and still the knights watched and waited. They besought the old man to intercede for them, but he answered that he was not her real father, and that he could not order her to obey him, and also that he would not ask her to do anything she did not wish to do.

At length the five knights returned to their homes, where they tried to forget the Princess Moonlight, but this they could not do, so they again came to the bamboo-cutter's house, and this time they asked the old man to tell them if the Princess were determined never to see any man. They begged him to say that their love for her was boundless, and ask for an opportunity to plead their cause.

Now, the old man would gladly have seen his lovely foster-daughter married to one of these suitors, and he felt sorry for them, so he said to the Princess:

"Dear one, you know that I love you quite as much as though you were my real child, and that there is nothing I would not do to make you happy. I cannot live many more years, for I am already old, and it