Adventure stories; Love -- Fiction; Princesses -- Fiction; Short stories
"Who was that?" cried the priest.
"A lad that came to hold my horse," answered Osra hastily, and then she
turned fiercely on the miller.
"And that," she said, "was all you wanted! I thought you loved me."
"Aye, I liked you very well," said the miller. "You are a handy----" A
stamp of her foot drowned the rest. "But you should have come in time,"
he went on.
"And this Gertrude--is she pretty?" demanded Osra.
"Gertrude is well enough," said the miller. "But she has only two
hundred crowns." And he put the purse, now full again, on the table with
a resigned sigh.
"And you shall have no more," cried Osra, snatching up her purse in
great rage. "And you and Gertrude may----"
"What of Gertrude?" came at this moment from the door of the room where
the sacks were. The Princess turned round swift as the wind, and she saw
in the doorway a short and very broad girl, with a very wide face and
straggling hair; the girl's nose was very flat, and her eyes were small;
but her great mouth smiled good-humouredly and, as the Princess looked,
she let slip to the ground a sack of flour that she had been carrying on
her sturdy back.
"Aye, Gertrude is well enough," said the miller, looking at her
contentedly. "She is very strong and willing."
Then, while Gertrude stood wondering and staring with wide eyes in the
doorway, the Princess swept up to the miller, and leant over him, and
cried:
"Look at my face, look at my face! What manner of face is it?"
"It is well enough," said the miller. "But Gertrude is----"
There was a crash on the floor, and the six hundred crowns rolled out of
the purse, and scattered, spinning and rolling hither and thither all
over the floor and into every corner of the room. And Princess Osra
cried: "Have you no eyes?" and then she turned away; for her lip was
quivering, and she would not have the miller see it. But she turned from
the miller only to face Gertrude his wife; Gertrude's small eyes
brightened with sudden intelligence.
"Ah, you're the other girl!" said Gertrude with much amusement. "And was
that your dowry? It is large! I am glad you did not come in time. But
see, I'll pick it up for you. Nay, don't take on. I dare say you'll find
another husband."
She passed by Osra, patting her on the shoulder kindly as she went, and
then fell on her knees and began to pick up the crowns, crawling after
them all over the floor, and holding up her apron to receive the
recovered treasure. And Princess Osra stood looking at her.
"Aye, you'll find another husband," nodded the priest encouragingly.
"Aye, you'll find another husband," assented the miller placidly. "And
just as one girl is pretty nearly as good as another--if she is handy
and sturdy--so one husband is as good as another, if he can keep a house
over you."
Princess Osra said nothing. But Gertrude, having picked up the crowns,
came to her with a full apron, saying:
"Hold your lap, and I'll pour them in. They'll get you a good husband."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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