Three Wonder Plays Part 5

_Prince_: I hope there is no harm in me coming hither. I would be loth to push on you ...

_First Aunt_: We thought it was right, as he was come to sensible years ...

_King_: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his time.

_Prince_: My father ... and his counsellors ...

and my seven aunts ...that said it would be right for me to join with a wife.

_Queen_: They showed good sense in that.

_Prince: (Rapidly.)_ They bade me come and take a look at your young 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 was.h.i.+ng-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 my head, I must leap up to meet them till I can hardly tell what is my right element, is it the high air or is it the loosened spring-tide!

_Queen_: Stop your nonsense talk. She is gone wild and raving with the great luck that is come to her!

_(Prince has stood up, and is watching her eagerly.)_

_Princess_: I feel a wind at this very time that is blowing from the wilderness of the sea, and I am changing with it.... There. _(Pulls down her hair.)_ Let my mane go free! I will race you, Prince, I will race you! The wind of March will not overtake me, Prince, and I running on the top of the white waves!

_(Runs out; Prince entranced, rushes to door.)_

_Aunts: (Catching hold of him.)_ Are you going mad wild like herself?