Three Wonder Plays | Page 7

lady of a Princess to see would she be likely to be pleasing to them.
_First Aunt_: That's it, and that is what brought ourselves along with
him--to see would we be satisfied.
_King_: I don't know. The girl is young--she's young.
_First Aunt_: It is what we were saying, that might be no drawback. It
might be easier train her in our own ways, and to do everything that is
right.
_King_: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing that is right, but it's
sometimes hard to know.
_Second Aunt_: Not in our place. What the King of the Marshes would
not know, his counsellors and ourselves would know.
_Queen_: It will be very answerable to the Princess to be under such
good guidance.
_First Aunt_: For low people and for middling people it is well enough
to follow their own opinion and their will. But for the Prince's wife to
have any choice or any will of her own, the people would not believe
her to be a real princess.
_(Princess comes to door, listening unseen.)_
_King_: Ah, you must not be too strict with a girl that has life in her.
_Prince_: My seven aunts that were saying they have a great distrust of
any person that is lively.
_First Aunt_: We would rather than the greatest beauty in the world get
him a wife who would be content to stop in her home.
_(Princess comes in very stately and with a_ _fine dress. She curtseys.
Aunts curtsey and sit down again. Prince bows uneasily and sidles
away.)_
_First Aunt_: Will you sit, now, between the two of us?
_Princess_: It is more fitting for a young girl to stay in her standing in
the presence of a king's kindred and his son, since he is come so far to
look for me.
_Second Aunt_: That is a very nice thought.
_Princess_: My far-off grandmother, the old people were telling me,
never sat at the table to put a bit in her mouth till such time as her lord

had risen up satisfied. She was that obedient to him that if he had
bidden her, she would have laid down her hand upon red coals.
_(Prince looks bored and fidgets.)_
_First Aunt_: Very good indeed.
_Princess_: That was a habit with my grandmother. I would wish to
follow in her ways.
_King_: This is some new talk.
_Queen_: Stop; she is speaking fair and good.
_Princess_: A little verse, made by some good wife, I used to be
learning. "I always should: Be very good: At home should mind: My
husband kind: Abroad obey: What people say."
_First Aunt: (Getting up.)_ To travel the world, I never thought to find
such good sense before me. Do you hear that, Prince?
_Prince_: Sure I often heard yourselves shaping that sort.
_Second Aunt_: I'll engage the royal family will make no objection to
this young lady taking charge of your house.
_Princess_: I can do that! _(Counts on fingers.)_ To send linen to the
washing-tub on Monday, and dry it on Tuesday, and to mangle it
Wednesday, and starch it Thursday, and iron it Friday, and fold it in the
press against Sunday!
_Second Aunt_: Indeed there is little to learn you! And on Sundays,
now, you will go driving in a painted coach, and your dress sewed with
gold and with pearls, and the poor of the world envying you on the
road.
_Queen: (Claps hands.)_ There is no one but must envy her, and all that
is before her for her lifetime!
_First Aunt_: Here is the golden arm-ring the Prince brought for to slip
over your hand.
_Second Aunt_: It was put on all our generations of queens at the time
of the making of their match.
_Princess: (Drawing back her hand.)_ Mine is not made yet.
_First Aunt_: Didn't you hear me saying, and the Prince saying, there is
nothing could be laid down against it.
_Princess_: There is one thing against it.
_Queen_: Oh, there can be nothing worth while!
_Princess_: A thing you would think a great drawback and all your
kindred would think it.

_Queen: (Rapidly.)_ There is nothing, but maybe that she is not so tall
as you might think, through the length of the heels of her shoes.
_Second Aunt_: We would put up with that much.
_Princess: (Rapidly.)_ It is that there was a spell put upon me--by a
water-witch that was of my kindred. At some hours of the day I am as
you see me, but at other hours I am changed into a sea-filly from the
Country-under-Wave. And when I smell salt on the west wind I must
race and race and race. And when I hear the call of the gulls or the
sea-eagles over