"No, madam," he said, with another bow. "Farewell, sir." "Madam, farewell." So she went on her way, and saw him no more till the next day, nor after that till the next day following; and then came an interval when she saw him not, and the interval was no less than twenty-four hours; yet still he read of Helen of Troy, and still sighed that she was dead and he no prince. At last he tempted the longed-for question from her shy, smiling lips. "Why would you not mourn, sir, if you were a prince?" said she. "For princes and princesses have their share of sighs." And with a very plaintive sigh Osra looked at the rapid-running river, as she waited for the answer. "Because I would then go to Strelsau, and so forget her." [Illustration: "FROM THE LONG GRASS BY THE RIVER'S EDGE A YOUNG MAN SPRANG UP, AND, WITH A VERY LOW BOW, DREW ASIDE TO LET HER PASS."] "But you are at Strelsau now!" she cried with wonderful surprise. "Ah, but I am no prince, madam!" said he. "Can princes alone--forget in Strelsau?" "How should a poor student dare to--forget in Strelsau?" And as he spoke he made bold to step near her, and stood close, looking down into her face. Without a word she turned and left him, going with a step that seemed to dance through the meadow and yet led her to her own chamber, where she could weep in quiet. "I know it now, I know it now!" she whispered softly that night to the tree that rose by her window. "Heigh-ho, what am I to do? I cannot live; no, and now I cannot die. Ah me! what am I to do? I wish I were a peasant-girl--but then perhaps he would not--Ah yes, but he would!" And her low, long laugh rippled in triumph through the night, and blended with the rustling of the leaves under a summer breeze, and she stretched her white arms to heaven, imploring the kind God with prayers that she dared not speak even to His pitiful ear. "Love knows no princesses, my princess." It was that she heard as she fled from him next day. She should have rebuked him. But for that she must have stayed, and to stay she had not dared. Yet she must rebuke him. She must see him again in order to rebuke him. Yet all this while she must be pestered with the court of the Grand Duke of Mittenheim! And when she would not name a day on which the embassy should come, the king flew into a passion, and declared that he would himself set a date for it. Was his sister mad, he asked, that she would do nothing but walk every day by the river's bank? "Surely I must be mad," thought Osra, "for no sane being could be at once so joyful and so piteously unhappy."