he 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