The Princess Pourquoi

By Margaret Sherwood

THE PRINCESS POURQUOI. Illustrated. $1.50.

THE COMING OF THE TIDE. With frontispiece. 12mo, $1.50.

DAPHNE: An Autumn Pastoral. 12mo, $1.00.

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

Boston and New York

THE

PRINCESS POURQUOI

EVERY DAY HER BIG EYES GREW WISER

Published October 1907

CONTENTS

THE PRINCESS POURQUOI [1]

THE CLEVER NECROMANCER [43]

THE PRINCESS AND THE MICROBE [81]

THE SEVEN STUDIOUS SISTERS [131]

THE GENTLE ROBBER [175]

⁂ The Princess Pourquoi, The Princess and the Microbe, and The Seven Studious Sisters appeared first in Scribner's Magazine, The Clever Necromancer in the Atlantic Monthly, and The Gentle Robber in McClure's Magazine. They are here reprinted by the courteous permission of the publishers of those magazines.

ILLUSTRATIONS

EVERY DAY HER BIG EYES GREW WISER [Frontispiece]

SIDE BY SIDE THEY WALKED TOGETHER [22]

"IT'S GOT TO BE KILLED," SAID THE PRINCESS STURDILY [101]

"WHAT!" THUNDERED HIS MAJESTY [142]

CAME RIDING FROM ALL PARTS OF THE KINGDOM [148]

HE BEGAN TO WEAR THE LOOK OF THOSE WHO SEE MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE [185]

FOR SOME HALF SMILED AND HID THEIR SMILES AS BEST THEY COULD [203]

A GLIMPSE OF AN HERETIC BEING BURNED TO DEATH [210]

Once upon a time, in a country very far away, a new princess was born. As is usual in such cases, the King, her father, and the Queen, her mother, held a great christening feast, to which were invited all the crowned heads for miles around, all the nobility of their own kingdom, and the fairies whose good wishes were considered desirable. In the middle of the ceremony, as is also customary, a very angry little old lady, with a nose like a beak, burst into the room.

"May I ask why I was not invited?" she demanded. "These are here," and she pointed to the fairy who rules the hearts of men, and to the fairy who rules circumstance. She herself was the fairy who rules men's minds.

"You!" stammered his Majesty. "Why, it is only a girl. We—we thought you would be offended. Later, if a son should be born"—

"You thought!" shrieked the enraged little creature, gathering her shoulder-shawl about her. "You thought nothing whatever about it. I am insulted, and I shall be revenged. Before anything yet has been given to this child I shall curse her"—

"Oh!" begged the crowned heads and the nobility.

"Yes," said the fairy, stamping and growing angrier, "I shall curse her with a mind."

"Anything but that," groaned his Majesty.

"Not that for a woman-child," moaned the mother, from under her silken coverlid.

"Yes," said the fairy, and her wicked black eyes snapped over her withered red cheeks. "She is a woman-child, and yet she shall think. She shall be alien to her own sex, and undesired by the other. She shall ask and it will not be given her. She shall achieve and it shall count her for naught. Men shall point the finger at her like this" (and she pointed one skinny forefinger at the King), "and shall whisper, 'There goes the woman with brains, poor thing!' As for your Majesty, in her shall you find your punishment. She shall think what you do not know, and divine what you cannot find out. Now," added the wicked fairy, turning to the two godmothers who stood by the child's cradle, "see if you, with all your giving, can do anything to lessen the curse that I have spoken," and she rushed away like a whirlwind, leaving every face dismayed.

The fairy who rules circumstance stood by the cradle and spoke. Her face was the face of one who wavers two ways, and her voice was unsure.

"The child shall have fortune," she said, "good-fortune, so far as is consistent with what has already been given. I wish," she added apologetically, "that I had spoken first."

"Why didn't you?" grumbled his Majesty under his whiskers, but he dared not speak aloud, for he was afraid of circumstance, being a king.

The other fairy stood silent, looking down into the child's face.

"But she shall know love," she said softly, after a little time. The sleeping princess smiled.

From the time that it was spoken the curse was felt. Before the baby could talk, she would lie in the royal cradle, fixing upon the King, her father, and the Queen, her mother, when they came to see her, eyes so big, so wise, so full of question, that his Majesty fled, and her Majesty covered her face with her hands, wondering what it could be that the child remembered and she forgot. The first word the Princess uttered was "Why." She said it so often that presently, through the whole length and breadth of the kingdom, she was known as the "Princess Pourquoi," though her real name was Josefa Maria Alexandra Renée Naftaline.

"Why," she asked, when she was very small, "did trees grow this way, instead of the other end up? Why did people stand on their feet instead of on their heads? Why did you like some people better than others, and why couldn't it be just as easy to like them all alike?"

She was a good little girl, but she had all the credit of being a bad one. She saw through what she was not intended to see through; she heard what she was not meant to hear; she understood what others wished to keep hidden. Therefore it came to pass that she was very lonely. She had a way of climbing affectionately up to the neck of some favored person, drawing down the head for a loving embrace, and then asking some terrible question, whereupon she was quickly put down on the floor and left alone. There she would sit, with so grieved a look in her big blue eyes that the next one who entered would pity the golden-haired baby, and would take her up, only to become a victim to some other unanswerable inquiry.

When she was four and five, her questions were theological or philosophical. "Why was she made at all, if she were as naughty as people said? Wouldn't it have been less trouble not to have made her, or to have made her good? Why were you you, and I I? Who was going to bury the last man?" The king's philosophers stood about in silence and gnawed their beards. They were terribly afraid of the little girl with chubby legs and dimples. As she grew older, her questioning turned more toward social matters and practical affairs. "Why," she asked his Majesty, her father, who also was afraid of her, "did he say that he loved his neighbor and yet make war? Why was he king? Was it because he was wiser and better than other people?" She looked at him so long and so doubtfully that his Majesty wriggled in the royal chair. He felt that this wretched child was endangering his power. Sometimes he was so miserable that he would willingly have abdicated, but he could not abdicate his little daughter. Besides, he was a king, and he did not have any place to go. Other children had been granted him, a line of little princesses, who wore long, stiff embroidered robes; and a nice, fat, stupid little prince, who was a great comfort to his father. All these other princelets obeyed the court etiquette and wore the court clothes, and never felt the ripple of an idea across their little minds, but they could not atone to the King for the thorn in his flesh known as Josefa Maria Alexandra Renée Naftaline.

The Princess Pourquoi objected to wearing a stomacher, for she liked to lie flat on her face in the park, watching the ants. She objected to making the court bow, and smiling the court smile, and putting out her hand to be kissed. Why should she? The ladies-in-waiting could only tell her, "It was so." She objected to taking mincing walks in the royal gardens among the peacocks, and sometimes, to the horror of all the court, escaped and played games with peasant children outside. She disliked her lessons. Why should she say, like a parrot, what her governess told her to, when there were birds and beasts and creeping things outside to study, and a library inside full of things really worth learning? So she went her own way, growing wistful and more lonely, and every day her big eyes grew wiser and fuller of secrets. Those who saw her crossed themselves and murmured, "The Curse!"

Once his Majesty held a great festival to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the founding of his kingdom by his imperial ancestor, Multus Pulvius Questus, who had conquered 500,000 men with his own arm, and had laid the cornerstone of a great principality. The festival was a brilliant one, and all the royal neighbors came. Just before the ceremonies began, in the large audience chamber, the governess of the Princess Pourquoi, stung by questions she could not answer regarding the achievements of Multus Pulvius, burst out with:

"You are a naughty little girl, and if you act this way, the fairy prince will never come."

"I don't want a fairy prince," replied the Princess proudly, looking at her governess with steady blue eyes. "I want a real one."

A little prince standing near, in a red velvet suit, looked at her very hard.

As time went on, the Princess Pourquoi was not quite content. She was too eager for that.

"I shall be happy when I find out," she said sadly one day.

"Find out what, your Highness?" asked the chief philosopher.

"It," answered the girl, and she pointed toward the horizon. "What it means, where we came from, what you are for and I am for."

The chief philosopher took a golden goblet of wine that a page had brought him and drank it to its dregs. Perhaps he meant this for an answer. Then he winked at his fellow-philosopher, and the two went arm in arm down a long path between box hedges in the garden. The Princess entered the royal palace and knelt at the feet of the King.

"Your Majesty," she asked, "why are people who do not know anything called wise men and philosophers?"

It was soon after this that the King made a great proclamation, offering the hand of his daughter to any one who would answer one of her questions satisfactorily. Suitors came by scores, although her unfortunate propensity was known, for the Princess was growing to be very beautiful, and his Majesty the King was very rich. The aspirant to her hand usually stood before the royal throne in the presence of the court, and the Princess was ushered in by the major domo. The Princess Pourquoi did not trouble herself to find new questions; she only asked some of the old ones over again, and the Crown Prince of Kleptomania, the Heir Apparent to the throne of Rumfelt Holstein, the reigning King of Nemosapientia, besides dozens of others, went sorrowfully back to their homes, rejected. When it was found that the ordeal was terrible, and the result always the same, the suitors gradually ceased coming, and the Princess Pourquoi remained a great matrimonial problem, aged fifteen, on the hands of her parents.

It was at this time that the Princess resolved to study, and to achieve something that was really her own. People should respect her, not because she was a princess, but because she could do great things. She pleaded with his Majesty until he ordered the greatest scholar in his kingdom to act as tutor for her, the greatest sculptor to teach her modeling, the greatest painter to teach her how to draw. For five long years the Princess worked and was happy, but the eyes of her mother were full of pity when they rested on her, and the passers-by in the streets whispered, "Poor thing!" Mothers drew their little ones closer to them when they saw her, and said: "Take care! It is the woman with a mind!" And the young ladies of the court, when they came out into the park with their long trains, and saw the Princess seated by herself with a book under a tree, said to themselves, under their breath: "Like that, too, but for the grace of God!"

At one of the annual exhibitions of works of art in the city was a statue, anonymously exhibited, that won great praise. It was of white marble, and represented a woman standing on tiptoe and reaching up and out with one hand. The fingers closed on nothing, and the look of the face was disappointed. Perhaps the greatest skill was shown in the rendering of the eyes. Their expression was baffling, and no one could say whether the woman was blind or not.

"What masculine strength of handling!" said the artists.

"What wonderful inner meaning!" said the philosophers.

The Princess Pourquoi came one day to visit it, and stood a long time watching the people who saw it. The outspoken praise made her eyes glisten. A workingman, in a peasant's blue blouse, strolled near. There was fine powder of chipped stone upon his sleeve.

"There is great power there," said the workingman, "but the work is crude."

The peasant was hustled out of the room, and an admiring crowd gathered about the statue of the groping woman. Some one whispered that it was not a man's work at all, but the work of a woman. Surprise, incredulity, disapproval passed in waves over the faces of the crowd. The rumor was established as a fact, though the woman's name was withheld. Every one could see faults now.

"We suspected it from the first," said the philosophers. "The lack of virility is apparent."

"You can see the woman's carelessness in regard to details in every fold of the drapery!" said the artists.

The Princess Pourquoi listened. Presently she faced the crowd.

"It is my work," she said simply. Then she summoned her lackeys and ordered her carriage, and disappeared before artists or philosophers could find any knot-holes to crawl through.

Their Majesties, the royal parents, were greatly pleased when they heard of this scene. Perhaps this condemnation of her statue would bring their daughter to her senses.

It was very fortunate that just at this time there came rumors of the advent of the Fairy Prince. From Bobitania, a kingdom leagues away, he was reported to be approaching, presumably to woo the Princess Pourquoi. The King and the Queen chuckled in secret together the day a messenger arrived to announce the advent of his Royal Highness, Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst, Heir-Apparent to the throne of Bobitania. This was a very great principality, indeed. Surely the Princess would for once act like other people, and would, for the sake of all that was to be gained, profess herself satisfied in regard to her questions.

The royal household was ordered into its very best clothing. The King and the Queen, the Prince and the Princesses, shimmered in velvet and jewels. The pages were resplendent in yellow and silver. The philosophers were profound in rich black. The woolly white dogs of the ladies-in-waiting were combed and tied with the colors of Bobitania, crimson and black. Everywhere, in jewels, in flower devices, among the hangings on the wall, were displayed the arms of Bobitania, a crimson star on a dusky background.

After the ceremonies of greeting were over, when Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor had bent before the King and the Queen on their throne, and had had presented to him all the royal offspring, the Princess Pourquoi was requested to show his Highness the garden of flowers, that his eyes might be refreshed after his long journey. So side by side they walked, talking together, between long rows of stately chrysanthemums, white, yellow, and red, she very erect in her brocaded gown, whose deep blue folds swept the grass, he all smiles and obeisance, in a slashed suit of scarlet and black. The waiting-women, by two and two, came on behind.

SIDE BY SIDE THEY WALKED TOGETHER

As they paced the garden, the peacocks retreated slowly, a statelier procession than they. They passed a fountain where a single workman was busy sculpturing a figure from a block of gray granite. His face was shaded by a cap, but the splendid action of strong arms and muscular shoulders was visible. The Princess paused, and the waiting-women turned, pretending to be busy with the box of the hedges or the pink-tipped daisies at their feet. The face of Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor grew uneasy, for he felt that the hour for his questioning had come. But the Princess was not thinking of him, for her eyes were following the workman's fingers.

"Why blue jean for one man's arm and velvet with pearls for another?" she said half to herself. "Why hunger for that man, and for me surfeit?"

"Most gracious Princess," answered Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor, secure in his reply, "the earth with all upon it is glad to lie as dirt beneath the feet of the most beautiful lady in the world."

He fell upon one knee and kissed her hand. She looked down intently into his narrow, upraised face.

"Queen among princesses," he begged, "question me and accept my answer. From far Bobitania I have come to woo, and if I fail, I die. What is the question I must answer?"

"You have answered," said the Princess. "Rise."

The hand of the workman had paused, uplifted, with a sculptor's hammer in its grasp. There was a queer little smile upon his face below the shadow of the cap.

The waiting-women paced in silence behind the Princess back to the presence of the King.

"Most august Sovereign," said the Prince, bending his knee in the royal presence, "I have come to place my kingdom at your daughter's feet. Deign to ask her if I have found favor in her eyes."

"What say you, my daughter?" asked the King, his delight shining through his face. "Is it not a noble prince and a fair offer?"

"My Lord and Father," said the Princess Pourquoi, bending in courtesy, then standing erect, more haughty than before, "it is no prince, but a man with a lackey's soul. He may come to reign, but a king he can never be. As for my hand, he may not again touch it. I go to make it clean."

Then she turned and walked, in a great silence, between the parted lines of frightened people, out of the audience-chamber and away.

How Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst went away in great anger, how the royal apologies were presented in vain, how the Princess Pourquoi was imprisoned for three days in her chamber with no books to read and was held in deep disgrace by all the court, is a long story, and one that would take much time to tell. But the Princess only smiled serenely, presented her duty to her parents, saying that she was deeply grieved if her necessary words had hurt them, and, the first day she was free, went walking in the royal garden alone.

The artisan was there at the fountain, working at the same stone figure. The Princess stood in silence and watched him. At her approach he had taken off his cap and had laid it on the grass. Yellow autumn leaves fell on his blue blouse and on her crimson velvet robe.

"Do you like to work?" asked the Princess Pourquoi timidly.

A look of amusement crept into the man's keen, dark eyes, and his lips quivered with a suppressed smile.

"Yes, your Highness," he answered, making an inclination of his head. And he went on working.

"Why?" asked the Princess Pourquoi.

"Gracious Lady and Princess," replied the artisan, "I do not know."

The Princess stared at his deft fingers and the quivering muscles of his arms. Then she strolled away to pick a late white rose, and presently wandered back, as if forgetful where her feet were going.

"I have seen you before," she remarked absent-mindedly.

He bent again, and murmured something respectful that she could not hear. The chance given him to continue the subject he did not improve.

"Once," continued the Princess, "in a hovel among other hovels at the foot of the hill. Through the open door of the sick-room where I stood, I saw you sitting at a poor man's table, sharing his black bread and muddy ale. Why were you there?"

"He was my friend," said the artisan. "His hut was then my home."

"Why do you wear a workingman's blouse and carve in stone?" demanded the Princess abruptly.

"Madame and Princess," replied the man, "it is the work that I have chosen," and he went on chipping away fine flakes of stone.

The lady walked away again, this time following a wayward peacock across the grass. The workingman paused to look after her, with the sunshine falling on her brown hair. Then he picked up a chisel that he had dropped, and, in doing so, bent to kiss the grass where her feet had rested, for she had trodden very close.

When the Princess came back the next time, she spoke with the quiet air of one who is greeting an old friend.

"You criticised my statue," she remarked. "You called it crude."

"Whoever reported my poor opinion to the Princess," said the man, "had evidently heard but part of what I said."

The Princess showed no curiosity as to the rest.

"Why were the others so unjust?" she demanded. "They praised my work when they thought it was a man's. They turned upon it and called it bad when they knew a girl had done it, and did not yet know that it was a princess. What can one do when it is all so unfair?"

The artisan answered not a word, but went on chipping, chipping, bending all his energy to the curve of a finger. The Princess watched with eyes in which all the blue of the autumn sky and all the shining of the autumn sun seemed centred. When the young man at length looked at her, her head was thrown back, and her face wore the look of one who feels her blood to be royal.

"Do you know," she asked sternly, though the expression of her eyes was of one who pleads, "what fate is reserved for the man who answers even one of my questions satisfactorily."

"Gracious Lady and Princess," he said humbly, "I have answered nothing, for I did not know. My mind, too, has questioned ceaselessly into the injustice of many things. I only"—

"You only," said the Princess, with a sweep of her hand,—"you only kept on working! Come!"

Refusing to walk at her side, he followed at a little distance, stepping unsurely, as one would walk in a dream. The lackeys looked at him and sneered as he went. His Majesty the King and her Majesty the Queen looked down in impatience from the throne when they saw the Princess Pourquoi leading in a peasant clad in blue jean.

"Some injury to redress!" muttered his Majesty. "Always a new grievance! I never have time to sleep or think."

The Princess swept across the audience-chamber with the air of one whom nature, not circumstance alone, had made a queen. She bent before her royal parents, then laid her hand upon that of the artisan.

"Your Majesties will remember," she said, "the decree made regarding me when I was fifteen years old. This man alone has answered one question of mine to my satisfaction. I come to beg"—and her face wore a frightened look, yet shone with a sudden gleam of mischief—"I come to beg that he incur the penalty."

Her Majesty fainted and was carried from the room. His Majesty turned purple, and the calves of his legs swelled with rage. The ladies-in-waiting hid their faces behind their hands and whispered, "Shameless!" The philosophers shook their heads and muttered, "The Curse!" As soon as the King could find his voice he thundered: "Away with him to the donjon keep! Let the executioner come and do his duty! Cut off the head of the impostor who would steal my daughter's hand!"

"He is no impostor," said the Princess scornfully. "Whatever his birth may be, his soul is royal."

The men-at-arms came forward to seize him, but the Princess flung herself between him and them. He put her gently aside, and stepped forward to defy them all, but his eyes rested all the while on her with a look that made great throbbings in her wrists. The clash of arms in the chamber was interrupted by the sound of commotion outside. Shouts of "Make way!" were heard. Then there were cries of: "A messenger, a messenger from his Grace of Bobitania!" Free way was left in the crowded hall for a man in a travel-stained riding-costume, who entered and hurried toward the throne.

"May it please your Grace," he panted, "his Majesty the King of Bobitania desires to make known that the Heir-Apparent to the throne, who disappeared many weeks ago, has not been discovered. News has just reached Bobitania that his valet, who stole much of the Prince's clothing after his disappearance, has been here representing himself to be the Prince. Let it therefore be known that the person who of late called himself Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst of Bobitania is an impostor, being the son of a liberated serf, and the grandson of a swineherd."

The nobles, the ladies-in-waiting, the philosophers crowded about the messenger. While he was explaining that Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor was eccentric, though deeply loved by every man, woman, and child in Bobitania; how he had insisted on learning a trade; how he had often disappeared for a time, living in disguise among his poorest subjects—the Princess was looking at the stone-cutter's face and smiling. She forbore to cast one glance of triumph upon the King.

The messenger took his leave of his Majesty and turned to go. Suddenly he fell upon his knees and kissed the hand of the peasant.

"My Lord the Prince!" he cried. And the vaulted ceiling gave back the cry, for all the people in waiting took it up and shouted for the Prince who wore blue jean.

"Why did you do it?" asked the Princess Pourquoi, two hours later, when she stood in the garden with her betrothed, the real Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst, Heir-Apparent to the throne of Bobitania.

"Gracious Lady and Princess," he answered, laughing, "I wanted to be real."

Then he told her how, many years ago, he, a tiny princeling, had heard a naughty little princess, in that very audience-chamber, demanding, not a fairy prince, but a real one.

"I took the only way I knew to become real," he said. "Have I found favor in your eyes, O beloved of my heart?"

"How long beloved?" asked the Princess anxiously, for she was much ashamed of the way in which she had wooed him.

"All my life long," he answered. And the peacocks never told how he kissed her.

His Majesty the King and her Majesty the Queen were delighted with the match. The royal father spent hours in telling the young Prince how great a delight his daughter's mind had always been to him, and how he should miss companionship with her when she was far away in Bobitania. All the court agreed with their Highnesses that they had had suspicions of the valet-prince from the very first, and the lackeys mentioned to the Princess the fact that from the first they had suspected the stone-cutter to be something more than appeared on the outside. The Princess Pourquoi became very popular up and down the length and breadth of the kingdom, and the philosophers, as they sipped their wine in the afternoon sunshine, said over and over what a wonderful child she had been, and how they had always prophesied a great destiny for her.

So there was a great wedding, the preparations for which shook Christendom to its foundations. All the crowned heads that were known were there. Barbaric kings from beyond Bobitania graced the ceremony in gorgeous embroidered robes sewn with diamonds and rubies and pearls. No colors that are known could paint the procession with its rainbow tints of banners and of clothing. Man has not senses enough to take in a description of the food that was provided. Peacocks' brains, served in golden dishes, were the simplest viands there.

The Princess Pourquoi was attired in white velvet, with a train eleven feet and six inches long; her lord and master glowed like a tropical bird in scarlet, and Christendom exclaimed that there had never been so beautiful a pair. While the trumpets were blowing and the dishes were rattling, and the after-dinner speeches of the philosophers were reaching their most blatant point, Prince Victor was quietly telling his bride that he had no intention of giving up his occupation of stone-cutter, and none of sitting upon his father's throne unless requested to by all the inhabitants of Bobitania. They talked in snatched whispers about the drawing-schools they would establish for the poor, and the model cottages that should be built from end to end of Bobitania, and they made great plans for the Princess's further work in sculpture. What else they said in sweet whispers, I shall not tell, for it was no one's affair but their own.

The most magnificent guest of all was the fairy godmother who had cursed the bride in her cradle. This wicked person was attired in black samite, made with incredible puffs and a train. She had a stomacher picked out with jet, and wore a very stiff ruff underneath her hooked chin. Her general expression was very fierce, but once she was heard to murmur, hiding a pleased smile behind her bony hand:—

"A pretty age of the world, when not even the curse of a mind can harm a woman!"

THE CLEVER NECROMANCER

Once, a long, long, long, long, long time ago, there was a city by the sea, and it was called Marmorante. Little gray mists floated down the gray streets, past the tall gray houses with carven windows and doors; pale, silvery fogs wrapped tower and spire, and oftentimes low, dark clouds hung sullenly for days together over gabled roofs and dull red chimneys; nor could the bravest winds that blew nor the swiftest golden sunbeams drive mist and cloud and fog away.

In Marmorante lived all manner of folk: a duke, a count, two marquises, and several squires; there were merchants many, with white-sailed ships that cut the waves; there were wool-combers and flax-beaters and haberdashers and marketmen; but most of all there were women: countesses, duchesses, and stately marchionesses; wives of merchants, wool-combers, haberdashers, flax-beaters,—women, women, women, maidens innumerable, and hosts of little girls. There were little girls with flaxen ringlets, little girls with long braids of yellow hair; dark-haired, slender maidens, maidens with white arms, maidens with blue eyes, brown eyes, or gray—every kind of maiden that ever lived, in life or in story.

Life went on quietly in the city by the sea. In the gray mornings count and countess talked amicably together in their great hall, and wool-carder and his wife gossiped cheerily as they rolled and carded the white fleece; in the gray afternoons Sir Knight walked in the castle garden among the flowers with my lady, and the butcher's 'prentice met his maid by the postern door: by embroidery frame and spinning-wheel, by tiring-room and kitchen spit, all was gray peace.

Then one day, when the clouds hung low, a raven croaked above the castle wall; black rooks cawed dismally with hints of coming disaster; and bats, mistaking clouded noon for night, flew out with squeaks and gibberings at noonday—yet nothing happened. Peasants' carts came creaking, as was their wont, to the city gate, with blue-smocked Jean or yellow-trousered Pierrot driving roan mare or piebald steed, and bringing bags of grain and great rolls of tanned skins to market. Old women with their flower baskets on their arms came nodding and courtesying, giving hollyhock or rose for toll to the porter, who would not say them nay because of their skinny arms and hungry faces. At last came one who was not of the line of sun-browned farmers, withered dames, or ruddy boys who drove in flocks of sheep.

It was a man, tall and long, and thin of face, clad in doublet and hose of sober drab, and he had naught with him save three small, transparent bags or bladders, one rose-colored, one purple, and one yellow, which seemed to be filled with but empty air.

"What bringest hither?" asked the porter, in a surly voice.

"Naught save my rattle," answered the tall man in drab; and with that he struck the bags together, so that there came out a tinkling sound wondrous cunning and small.

"Is danger therein?" said the man at the gate, holding back. "Mayhap they go off, like powder, and do harm."

Then the tall man smiled a strange, three-cornered smile, for his chin was long and protruding, and strained his lips that way.

"Ay," he confessed, "they go off, but they do no hurt;" then he paid his penny toll and went unmolested in. The porter stood long, with arms akimbo, and looked after him.

"'Tis some fool," said the porter, and went back to his mug of ale.

The sad-hued man went on through the narrow streets that let in only a strip of the sky's blue, and anon he came to the open market-place, where little was doing that day, for the flowers were wilted, and the vegetables for the most part gone; only the lambs that were left bleated piteously now and then. The stranger sprang upon a counter where wheat had been sold, and he struck his little bags together, so that they rattled merrily as he called aloud:—

"Come, hear, hear, hear! Come, hear the words of wisdom I shall say, the greatest words that shall ever meet your ears. Come, hear, hear, hear! To-day I speak, and to-morrow I may not: 'tis the chance of a lifetime, and not to be overlooked. Come, hear, hear, hear!"

Now with the rattling of the bags, and the rattling of the man's voice, many people came running hither: squire and 'prentice and count, marchioness and merchant's lady, and the cook from the castle, all hurrying toward the empty sound. Soon a great crowd was gathered, of men and of maidens, of women with white wimples and folded kerchiefs, and of little girls with yellow hair.

"Come, hear, hear, hear!" repeated the man, in slow singsong, watching the people with his narrow blue eyes which were rimmed with red; then, so swiftly that none could see, he bent his head and touched his lips to the transparent bags. He spoke, and lo! a miracle, for out of his mouth came a beautiful, iridescent mist of words that floated and floated and broke against the gray fog, and rested across the eyes of an elderly woman who stood buxom and comely, and fell like a halo upon the fair hair of a young girl standing bareheaded in the sun, and flashed like an opal, flickered like a flame, so that at last the whole market-place was full of floating color; yet all that the man had said was, "Be good and you will be happy," with variations.

"A necromancer!" said the red-faced butcher under his breath.

"A prophet!" cried the countess, as a floating bit of the colored mist lighted on her lips.

"I never heard such truth," said the fair-haired maiden, with a bar of iridescent cloud across her eyes.

Watching and silent the Necromancer stood, the three-cornered smile upon his lips. They prayed him to do his trick again, but he shook his head and would not.

"To-morrow," he said, "at two P.M.;" and he smiled at the shower of golden coin that rained into his bell-crowned hat.

When they were sure that nothing more was forthcoming, they went marveling away; but all about the silvery fog that clung to the steeples, and the gray mists that lay along the streets, and the clouds that hung sullenly above, still hovered little rosy flecks of flame and hints of rainbow color.

Day after day the Necromancer stood in the market-place, and put his lips secretly to his colored bags, and spoke. He had searched all the copy-books of the kingdom, and had taken familiar truths, such as: "The good die young;" "To be selfish is to be miserable;" "Haste makes waste;" "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;" and he clothed them in rainbow colors and breathed his mist about them, so that they stalked in beauty wonderful and strange, and the folk who listened did not know their own ideas when they met them face to face, because of the garment of many-colored words in which they came. Then the women went mad throughout the city, mad for the loud-sounding voice and the rattle of the bags, rose-colored, purple, and yellow. By her broidery frame the Countess Angélique forgot to draw green thread of silk through the dim web, and in her lap her white hands lay idle. Walking to and fro by her spinning-wheel, little Jeanne wove into the blue yarn the glittering phrases of yesterday, so that the strands tangled and knotted at the spindle. Margot, the cook, forgot her chickens roasting on the spit, but turned and turned them by the glowing coals till they were burned and black; and Joan the butcher's wife could no longer tell haunch of venison from flitch of bacon, but greeted customers with a vacant stare, for her mind was quite gone, gone the way of the wind, after the wonderful bits of colored fog.

Now the fair-haired maid who had stood awed in the market-place on the day when the enchanter came was a rich merchant's daughter, and her given name was Blanche. She was betrothed to one Hugh of a neighboring city, and he came often to Marmorante, lodging always at the sign of the Red Dragon. Thus had been his wooing, as he stood one day with the maid and her father by the lattice that looked forth on the street.

"Wilt have me?" he asked, and the words cost him much, for he was a man of plain speech, and oft of no speech at all.

The maid stood in the sunshine and looked upon him, and he thought her a goodly sight. Green was her gown, and cut square at the throat, and with it the color of her eyes seemed green, and he knew not if her hand or her neck were whiter.

"I could give thee white velvet to thy train," he stammered, and the old man, her father, stood and watched.

"Dost love me?" asked the maid, for she was one that had heard old ballads sung; and the man opened wide his honest eyes.

"Ay, surely, else had I not asked thee to wife."

"Then will I wed thee," said the maid, and the wooer stood gazing at her, not daring the kiss that was in his mind.

"'Tis a good chaffer," said young Hugh. "We shall get on rarely together;" and thereafter, as heretofore, he had no eyes for aught save the maiden's face. All this was a month agone, and to-day, when he came again, the maid would have it that he must needs go forth with her to the market-place to listen to this wonder; and he followed, willing enough, for he would have gone into the very dragon's teeth after the hem of her gown. Howsoever, the thought of going to listen to mere speech seemed to him but folly.

When they came to the open place, and he saw what was there, his eyes opened wide, and he whistled softly for sheer amazement, for never yet had he seen so great a concourse gathered together. There were women in velvet and in satin, women in homespun and in blue jean, even women in rags; and there were maidens as many and as lovely as the leaves upon the maple tree when it turns to rosy color in the fall, maidens dull or bright of hair as the case might be, but always bright of eye and of cheek. Far and near they gathered, crowding close together; many stood on bench or on counter, straining white necks forward; and all the windows that looked upon the market were crowded with fair faces. Presently, with long and pensive stride, came the lean man in drab; and as he came, honest Hugh heard the sudden, sharp breathing of the maid at his side, and felt her lean forward as if she were one quivering ear.

What followed puzzled the young man sorely. It was one of the great days of the Necromancer: forth from his mouth came a violet speech in the form of a bubble, and it floated over the heads of the people in lovely changing shades that ranged all the way from deep purple to the palest tint that is not yet white. Midway across the gray cloud it burst, and its gleaming bits drifted hither and yon, and the speaker smiled as he saw the eager fingers raised to catch the tiny vapors which melted as soon as touched. Forth came another and another; it was a day of loveliest froth. Anon came a speech of the color of gold that shimmered and shone in the sunlight, and burst into sparkles a thousand ways, and so golden bubble followed golden bubble. All the little girls with floating hair or yellow braids ran after them, with hands lifted high to catch them before they burst, and the least maids wept because the taller ones caught more than they.

Young merchant Hugh stood watching, with his hand upon his chin.

"'Tis a strange sight," he murmured to himself. "Jugglers enow have I seen in the East, and many of their devices have I learned, but I have seen naught like this."

Then he turned to his betrothed.

"Dost know the trick, Blanche?" he asked, but when he saw her face, he knew that there was somewhat amiss with his words. All awed was she, and in her eyes was the look of one who had seen a vision; and, glancing about, he saw that the other women and maids wore the same expression. He came home pondering, having noted the shower of coin that had fallen into the Necromancer's hat; nor could he understand, for he gave ever good measure for the gold that was given him. Also he was sore troubled, for his betrothed had no words for him, only looks of high disdain.

"Well, daughter," said the old merchant, as the two came in, "what saith the prophet to-day?"

"Oh!" cried the maiden, "all was wonderful and full of beauty. Each day is his discourse more marvelous than yesterday's."

"But what was it all about?" he asked, laying his hand upon her hair, for he was tender of her.

"How could I presume to tell?" she asked, with a grieved red lip. "'Twas too wonderful to put into words;" and she swept from the room, with no glance for her lover.

Young merchant Hugh, to whom the very rushes on which the maiden stepped were dear because of his great speechless love, gazed after her, jealous of the look upon her face, and cruelly wounded by her scorn.

"I will find out the trick," said the young man to himself, between set teeth; and he was one who ever made good his words.

Now the maiden Blanche was glad when her lover begged to go forth with her the next day and the next, at two P.M.

"Mayhap he may learn something of this wondrous speech," she said wistfully, thinking to herself that it would be sweet to be wooed in violet words and words of the color of gold. When he bent shyly to kiss her before they went, with lips that trembled for the great love they might not say, she drew stiffly back, nor would she thereafter permit touch or caress, and much she spoke of the joy of a maiden's life that would leave time free for thought; yet she took him gladly with her for a week of days. Ever he listened, as one spellbound, nor once removed his glance from the Necromancer's face; and he was keen of eye, and wont in traffic to detect word or look of fraud, and he saw what no one else had seen.

"I have it!" he cried, and he slapped his fist upon the palm of his left hand. "Those be bags of many-colored words that he hath with him, and he but sucks them up and breathes them forth."

That day he sent his sweetheart home with Dame Cartelet, that lived hard by, and was as besotted as she on the man with the magic words; then he went and lay in wait in the street through which the Necromancer passed each day in going home; and as he waited, he turned back his velvet cuffs, and felt lovingly of the muscle of shoulder and arm. So it was not long before a tall man in drab went running through the narrow streets on the outskirts of the town, crying and wringing his hands, and the rattling bags of rose color, and purple, and gold were gone from his neck.

"Oh, my vocabulary!" he wailed. "Oh, my bags, my bags, my bags! What am I but a man undone without my bag of adjectives!"

The dogs and the children that ran at his heels did not understand, nor did smith and weaver as they stood in their doorways.

"Oh, my other bag, my bag of epithets, of polysyllabic epithets!" cried the fugitive as he ran.

A squealing pig joined the chase, and the men children and maid children who ran after laughed aloud. The women who watched from lattice or stone doorstep were of those who, by means of ten skillfully selected adjectives from the rose-colored bag, and a dozen golden epithets from the bag of yellow, had been made to gape and quiver with the sense of the birth of new truth, yet they failed to recognize the juggler, for iridescent mist and ruddy vapor had vanished from his head and shoulders, and they saw naught save a lean and ugly man fleeing under a gray sky; and, hearing, they yet did not understand his cry of deep dismay.

"Oh, my exclamation points, my lost exclamation points! Oh, my pet hiatus that laid all low when nothing else would avail!"—and so he passed out of their sight, and out of the city of Marmorante.

At the sign of the Red Dragon that afternoon, young merchant Hugh was closely locked in his room. Behind great iron bolts he sat upon a three-legged stool, and worked with the colored, rattling bags.

"'Tis well that men have devised this thing," he said, holding a mirror before his face, as he sucked air from the bag of rose; "else could I not see if all goes well." And his heart was well-nigh bursting with joy when he saw that the breath of his mouth was even as the breath of the Necromancer upon the air. Then he slipped downstairs and begged for a cup of ale, and as the maid served him in the kitchen, he blew out a whiff from the bag of gold, and of a sudden her face became as the faces of the women who stood in the market-place under the spell of the juggler, and Hugh was glad.

The next day he hid the bags in a neckerchief of fine silk, and went to the house of his sweetheart, asking to see her; but when she came, it was with a face set and cold, and she paused with the great oaken table between them.

"Hugh," she said, unsmiling, "I have been thinking."

"'Tis foolish work for a woman," he answered stoutly.

"That which thou dost say but confirms my thought," she answered, still more coldly. "We cannot be wed; waking and sleeping have I considered this matter, and thus have I resolved."

"Now, why?" cried honest Hugh bluntly.

"We have so little in common," said Blanche.

"Thou shalt have all," he stammered, forgetting, in his hurt, the magic bags. "Why, 'tis for thee I send forth all my ships. I will be but thy pensioner."

A shadow of pain passed over the maiden's face.

"I mean not goods nor possessions, nor any manner of vulgar things; 'tis of mind and soul I speak, and ours be far apart."

"My goods be not vulgar!" cried young merchant Hugh. "Rare silks and cloths from the East have I, and purest pearls, for thy white throat. No common thing is there in all my store."

Then the little foot of Blanche tapped impatiently on the stone floor.

"'Tis of no avail that I try to make thee understand! I say there be depths in my nature that thou mayst not satisfy; also am I full busy this morning and must beg to be excused"—and with that she drew open the heavy oaken door, leaving him in the long room as one dazed.

Then he bethought him of his bags, and drew them out too late, taking a whiff from each as a sob rose in his throat. Suddenly the fair hair of Blanche appeared again in the doorway, and she smiled as a stranger upon him.

"I forgot to say that I wish thee all manner of good, and great prosperity," she said amiably.

Then out of Hugh's mouth came a purple speech, and a speech of the color of gold; and little iridescent mists floated through the air, while a rose-colored bubble rested for a moment on the white eyelids of the maiden. The dull-paneled room was as the breaking of a rainbow; yet all he had said was, "Wilt not wed me, Blanche?" But he said it in rose color and purple and gold.

"What have I done?" cried the maiden sorrowfully; and he rejoiced to see that the look upon her face was as it had been when she had listened to the Necromancer's philosophies and faiths.

Then he turned and smiled, saying: "I love thee, Blanche," and he spoke in the juggler's speech, which made a glory on the maiden's hair, and about her gown of green. With outstretched hands she came toward him, and she laid her head upon his breast, smiling up at him.

"I was mad but now, Hugh," she breathed. "Our two souls be but one."

"Wilt come with me to the market-place this afternoon?" he asked.

"Nay," sighed the maiden. "I care not for the market-place, for I am happy here, where I have found my home."

"I speak there," he said bluffly, "at two P.M."

"Thou!" and the maiden's laughter rang out like the touch of silver bells, "and of what?"

"Of phases of occult thought," he answered gravely.

"Ay," cried Blanche, and she raised her face to kiss him. "Ay, Hugh, be sure that I shall be there when thou dost talk philosophies."

The young merchant was good as his word, and that afternoon he stood in the market-place upon a counter, rattling the juggler's bags as he waited. As before, men, women, and maidens came, by tens, by twenties, by hundreds, till there was no spot where he could look without meeting a pair of wistful eyes.

"It looks to be but plain Hugh, the merchant," whispered one to another.

"Hath he undertaken to sell his wares here?" asked one.

"He hath choice pearls," whispered a maiden who was not yet wholly given over to occult thought.

But Hugh had begun to speak, and faces of wonder were lifted to him, for he was strong of lung, and the breath from the magic bags went farther than ever before.

"Our friend the Necromancer is indisposed, and I must take his place," he began. "Like him, I have chosen a theme from the depths of human thought; and now, hear! hear! hear!"

Then eloquence poured forth from the man's lips so fast, so full a stream, that the very welkin was rose-tinted, and a great rainbow seemed to overspread the sky. Gray clouds above the tallest spires broke into tints of opal, and all the air shaded into the violet and purple of exclamation points, and of the pet hiatus, which was hard to work, but came well off. Golden glory haunted carven door and window, and words of flame crept around the tracery of arch and gable. Women sobbed for very joy; others wrote madly on their tablets; maidens gasped with red lips slightly opened; never, during the whole lecture season, had come so big a wind from out the bags, and honest Hugh blushed with mingled shame and triumph when he saw the face of his betrothed, for it wore the look of one who had seen the white vision of naked truth.

Following the fashion of the Necromancer, he had taken a maxim, and had dressed it up so that men knew it not, and so that it came forth as revelation. All that he had said from the first to the last was the truth that he knew best: "Honesty is the best policy;" but this was the way in which he had said it, with constantly shifting color:

"Glory awaits the equable! All-hails are the portion of him, who, unswerving, with eyes upon the path ahead, with lofty head erect, perambulates his chosen path through this world's tangled wilderness, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, though golden cohorts beckon. The goal is for the upright feet. The crown waits.... What matter if the victor be sobbing and breathless, so that he be conqueror?" (Observe the hiatus.) "So saith golden-tongued Plato; so saith heavy-browed Aristotle of persuasive speech; so saith Aulus Gellius, withdrawn in his inner truth, and his brother, Currant Gellius, whose essence clings; so say the holy fathers, subtle Basil, myriad-minded Chrysostom; so saith the copy-book."

When the speech was over, and the bags hidden away, Hugh bore as best he might the tears and congratulations of the women, their murmured plaudits, and inspired looks.

"'Tis the first time I have ever failed to give honest measure," he said shamefacedly to himself as they flocked about him.

That night, as he sat with the maiden and her father, he spoke of departing on the morrow with a ship that would sail for Morocco to be gone many months, and his sweetheart came to him, creeping into his arms.

"Do not leave me, Hugh," she pleaded. "It is so far away."

"I must go, little one," he answered, smoothing her fair hair. "Men sit not ever by the fire to hear tabby purr."

"Say them again," she pleaded, "say again the words thou didst speak this morning, that I may have them with me when thou art far away."

"Far in illimitable recesses of time and of space," he began shamefacedly, "before phenomena existed, thy bodiless soul and mine met and mingled as one"—

"Where hast learned that jargon, Hugh?" asked the old merchant, with a loud guffaw.

"Hush!" said Hugh, with loving hands upon the maiden's ears so that she might not hear. "All is fair in love, father!"

But Hugh was still an honest merchant, and never in his long and happy life did he use the stolen vocabulary in bargaining, or to gain dishonest advantage in trade. Only, when the face of Blanche, his wife, grew sad, he would take out the colored bags, which he kept secretly locked in an iron chest, and then the old smiles would come back to her beautiful face, and with them the look of awe wherewith she regarded her husband, as the mist of purple, and the flecks of rose color, and the bubbles of gold, fell on hair and eye and ear.

THE PRINCESS AND THE MICROBE

The Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine sat on a stone seat by the mermaid fountain in the royal gardens, crying bitterly because she was not a prince. The sun was warm, the water splashed merrily over the mermaids' tails, and not far away two infant counts, an archduckling, and a baby baroness were playing on the green grass, but the Princess would have none of their game of tag. She only howled with her mouth open, and paused for breath, and howled again. Then Lady Marie Françoise Godolphin and the Duchess Louise of Werthenheim, who were pacing the garden paths by box hedge and rose bed (Lady Marie was superb in pink chiffon over white silk, and the Duchess wore blue embroidered tulle looped with clusters of artificial lilies), frowned and whispered to each other that the naughty child ought to be punished, which was manifestly unfair, as it was all their fault. Never would the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine have thought of being wickedly ungrateful for the privilege of being a girl, if the following conversation had not reached her through the box hedge:—

Lady Marie: His Majesty will be so relieved that it is a son. Think, the boy will be Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth!

The Duchess: I distinctly remember the grief of both the King and Queen when the Princess turned out to be a girl.

It was then that the Princess Victorine, who had been dandling her doll and gaining great comfort from this distinctly feminine occupation, threw this same doll from her with violence, unconscious of the symbolic character of the act, and digging her little fists into her eyes, burst into weeping so loud that Lady Marie Françoise and Duchess Louise dragged their buckram-stiffened trains away over the grass to escape from their victim's cries.

Presently sobbing became hard work, and the Princess sat still in the sunshine, thinking. Her blue eyes had red rims about them, her yellow hair was dried in wisps on her forehead, her fat legs hung dejectedly down. She was reaching back farther and farther into her dim little consciousness, trying to remember how she ever came to make that dreadful initial mistake. She had disappointed the Queen, her mother—here the sobs began again, for the Princess loved that royal lady; she had chosen, though she could not remember when, and had chosen wrongly. Then she began to wonder what it was to be this thing that the King and Queen and Lady Marie and the Duchess were so grateful for, a boy. She candidly thought that she was nicer than the two little counts and the archduckling, and she found her riddle hard to read, for no one had ever before suggested to her, much less explained, the disgrace of sex.

Crying was difficult, and thinking was harder still—for the Princess. Presently she jumped down from her bench and trotted away almost joyfully, for a happy thought had struck her. The Princess was the sweetest, most obliging little soul in the world, and helpful withal. A way of escape had suggested itself to her: she would find out what boys were like and be one. The Queen, her mother, should be no longer disappointed in her, nor should any ladies of the court make invidious remarks through box hedges. Whatever happened, she would never again turn out to be a girl. So, in an unfortunate comparison, made by two people who could obviously ill afford to be critics, began the evolution of that unnatural monster, more "fell than hunger, anguish, or the sea," a mannish woman.

At first the Princess Victorine prayed about it. Every night, in her little golden crib, which had the arms of her house—a spotless leopard, couchant—embroidered on the blue satin hangings, she shut her eyes and begged to be made into a prince with yellow love-locks and scarlet doublet and pink hose. Would he be Olivero Rinaldo Victor the Twenty-fourth, she wondered? But every morning she wakened with indignation to the fact that she was still a girl. As her faith in miracle weakened, her determination to succeed by her own efforts grew stronger, and she never doubted that she could do it if she tried hard enough. Her face took on an expression of firmness, "most unfeminine," said Lady Marie, who was her governess.

"Do not run, my dear—it is so masculine," said Lady Marie, often; or "Do not climb trees, your Highness—such rough playing is fit only for boys."

Then the Princess would look at her with non-committal, wide-opened eyes and say nothing. She had a secret, inner knowledge, dating from that moment of revelation in the garden, of the superiority of being a boy, and henceforward nothing could take it from her, not precept, nor example, nor soft insinuation of the beauty and propriety of womanliness. She knew that people were trying to deceive her; she had heard of conspiracies before—but she never let them see that she knew. On occasions like this she had a way of looking stupid which was nearer cleverness than anything else that she ever did.

Now, there are people for whom one idea, with variations, will last a lifetime, and the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine was one of them. As to questions about the whys and wherefores of things, she never asked one in her life, nor answered one. Very systematically she set about her life-work. As his Highness, her baby brother, grew up, she imitated him. Once she was found standing with her sturdy legs apart and her arms akimbo, whistling. Lady Marie and the Queen both wept, and deprived the Princess that day of her bread and jam, but to no effect. She seemed inspired by the energy of the small boy or the demon. Her legs could not keep still; she ran, she jumped, she leaped, she climbed, she played all boyish games, and once, but my ink blushes red in recording this, she was caught by the Duchess turning somersaults in the garden. Terrible were the reproaches heaped upon her, and her misdeeds seemed greater because they went unexplained. On this occasion Lady Marie and the Duchess were both sent to discipline her. (Lady Marie was attired in rose satin covered with black lace, and the Duchess was charming in Nile-green brocade, with pearls.) When Lady Marie said, with her scented handkerchief at her eyes: "My dear, your actions are bringing me into disrepute; what will their Majesties think of me?" the Princess, who detested scents, only turned red and said nothing. Not once did she retort that she never would have tried to be a boy if these two had not taught her the desirability of it; she only trudged on in her own way toward the longed-for goal, sure that the scoldings, the reproaches, and, saddest of all, her mother's tears, came because she had not tried hard enough and had not succeeded.

There were times when the Princess Victorine surpassed Auguste Philippe. One sunshiny morning, when the two were playing knight and ogre in the courtyard, the Prince announced that he meant to climb the castle wall. He did it only out of bravado, for, being a boy, with a boy's common sense, he knew that it was impossible.

"I'm going to climb it, too," said Olivera Rinalda Victorine stubbornly.

"Pshaw, you can't! You're only a girl," said Auguste Philippe, strutting up and down in his slashed velvet doublet and his feathered cap.

"And you are only a boy," said the Princess, meditatively eying him. She did not say it to be saucy—she was only thinking. Then she deliberately took the hem of her embroidered blue satin skirt in her teeth and began to climb the wall, while Auguste Philippe watched from below with wrath and terror in his eyes. By means of a niche here, a clinging ivy vine there, a window ledge, and, now and then, a friendly, grinning gargoyle, the Princess succeeded, and stood at last triumphant upon the battlements, waving her blue skirt for a flag. But all that she got for it was a scolding, and, to the day of his death, Auguste Philippe never admitted that it was true. In fact, he never entirely believed it, though he had watched every step from the courtyard below.

Better even than boyish sports, the Princess loved stories of knightly deeds, and the very pith and marrow of chivalry entered into her bones. She could not read, but that did not matter, for the story-tellers could not write, but oh! they could tell tales. Stories of dragons slain and ogres vanquished, stories of maidens rescued, enchanters caught and prisoned, stories of caitiff knights thrust through at the moment of their greatest villainy by the swords of heroes, all these the Princess Victorine drank up with greedy ears and mind, and her heroic little heart throbbed within her. Often—it was most unmaidenly—she furtively felt of her muscle in leg or arm, wondering when she would be strong enough to go forth in quest, for not one tale roused in her the desire to become a teller of stories herself—she only wanted to act one. Once she took Auguste Philippe aside, saying:—

"I'll tell you a secret, if you won't tell."

"Go ahead!" said Auguste Philippe graciously. He had doubly the air of a sovereign, being at once a brother and heir presumptive.

"I'm going out to find and fight a dragon," said Princess Victorine.

"Huh!" sneered the Prince. "There aren't any dragons any more. You are behind the times."

"Aren't any dragons!" cried the Princess. "What do you mean?"

"There haven't been any for a long time," remarked Auguste Philippe nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. But the Princess would not have the foundations of her faith shaken too easily.

"What do they mean by telling us about them all the time?" she demanded. "Every minstrel that comes here does, and so does old Lord Jean, and the Countess Madeline, and everybody nice."

"I don't care," asserted the Prince. "There aren't any—there's only the Microbe."

"What's the Microbe?" gasped the Princess.

"It's worse than dragons, that's what it is," said Auguste Philippe viciously.

"What does it do?" asked the Princess.

"It bites," answered the Prince. "It stays somewhere in the woods and swamps, and every year it eats a great number of youths and maidens, and old men and children. It's always hungry."

"Why doesn't somebody go and kill it?" said the Princess.

"Dunno!" answered Auguste Philippe.

"What does it look like?"

"It has one great eye," answered the Prince unhesitatingly, knowing that life demanded that he should instruct the feminine mind whether he had information or not; "it has ten great rows of teeth, and what it does not bite with one set it bites with another. It never roars—that makes it worse than a dragon, for you can't tell when it is coming. And it has a hundred thousand claws reaching everywhere."

The Princess went and sat by a rosebush, wearing her most enigmatical expression. If she was overawed, she was too plucky to show it. Prince Auguste Philippe looked at her, not without remorse. He was aware that he knew nothing of the Microbe save its name, but he decided not to confess—it would only shake a sister's confidence, so he went away to fly his kite.

Now, years flew past, and every day the Princess's bosom swelled with knightly ardor, and every waking thought was of the slaying of the Microbe. The words of Auguste Philippe that day by the rosebush became the second inspiration of her life, and the second only completed and strengthened the first. At eighteen, as at six, the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine was round of face and pink of cheek. Her big blue eyes, set in the baby fairness of her face under the yellow hair, had the confiding look of a little child. All this was very pretty, but manly sports had developed her physique far beyond the bounds of feminine propriety. There were muscles on her lovely shoulders, and they made her tiring-women weep. As for her biceps, she had always to wear loose, flowing sleeves, for the strong arms broke through the embroidery of tight ones. She was taller than she should have been, and her waist refused to taper. If her sex had been different, the royal parents would have gloried in her strength and her agility, but as it was, they cast down their eyes in her presence and begged her, if she had any filial reverence, to talk mincingly and small, at least in their presence.

One day the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine sought out Lady Marie.

"I am going on a quest, to find and fight the Microbe," she remarked briefly. Lady Marie gave her one look, and fainted, and the Princess revived her by means of her vinaigrette.

"My dear!" whimpered Lady Marie, "think how many gray hairs you are bringing down in sorrow. I do not mean mine," she added hastily; and, in truth, hers were no longer gray.

"It's got to be killed," said the Princess sturdily. "It's a pest."

"IT'S GOT TO BE KILLED," SAID THE PRINCESS STURDILY

"But what is it?" whispered Lady Marie, blushing through her rouge. "Is it a thing that a young girl ought to know about?"

There was hubbub in the court for ten days. Counts, marchionesses, dukes, and earls gathered in corners and talked under their breath. Some thought that the Princess should be imprisoned in a dungeon; others spoke of her with pity, believing her mad. One party, headed by old Lord Jean and the Countess Madeline, said that it was all nonsense. Everybody knew that there was no such thing as the Microbe; it was only a new heresy, wickedly devised to shake the established faith in dragons. The Princess might just as well be allowed to go the way of her folly and find out the truth. Another faction, made up of believers, spoke darkly of the mystery that enshrouded the foe, for he lived in a fog, and went out to kill veiled in cloud, and they hinted that if the Princess went to find him, she would not return alive. His Majesty and her Majesty, bewildered, agreed with both parties, wept, protested, but did not forbid the Princess to go, for fear that she would not mind. Auguste Philippe said a bad word.

At first the Princess tried to reason with them—an unwonted occupation for her.

"It really is a combat that a lady could very well engage in," she said earnestly. "It isn't as if it were a dragon, you know." But they only pooh-poohed and ha-haed until she shut her lips very tightly together, and went on her way as usual, unexplained.

Just here attention was diverted from her, for his Majesty, who had been hurt in hunting, sickened and died, and amid sobs and whisperings and discussions, Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth came to the throne. There were many rumors and whispers of how the late King had come to his death: some said that it was a fall from his steed; others hinted the Microbe, shivering with horror at the name. No one was sure of anything, and the court physicians very cleverly gave out that they could not explain at length his Majesty's ailment because nobody knew enough to understand.

But the Princess Victorine, who was not a person of doubts, was convinced from the first. With her head held very erect, she went to the court armorer, and gave orders that he dared not disobey; then she went to the royal stables and made her choice, while all stood still to watch her, spellbound, no one venturing to lift a hand. Her Majesty was too much overcome with grief to care what happened; Lady Marie and the Duchess were absorbed and happy getting the court into mourning, and so there was no one but Auguste Philippe to say good-by to the Princess when she went away. He had risen very early, and stood upon the battlements to see her go.

It was one brave June day when the Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine, armed cap-à-pie, went forth to war. She was mounted on a charger of dapple gray; a palfrey she would not have. On her head was a shining steel helmet, through the back of which her tawny hair floated down her back—there was not room to do it high. Through her visor her blue eyes sparkled with a steady light. On her arm she carried a blue shield, for even in her battle mood she could not forget what color was becoming. It bore the device that she had chosen for herself, a virgin rampant, gules. The armor that covered her from head to foot was of wrought rings of finest steel, made with a flowing skirt that fell in protecting folds about her feet. Her right hand held a spear; with her left she guided her steed.

"Good-by, dear!" called the Princess, waving her hand to Auguste Philippe.

"You are a silly thing," he remarked, affectionately, from the battlements. "You won't do anything but tear your clothes."

He did not try to stop her. In the strain of becoming Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth he found that there were many things he was not so sure of as he had been before. The flame in his sister's eyes he did not understand, and he wondered why she was not content to stay at home and play at quoits and dance to music, as he was; but he resolved that Victorine should make a fool of herself in her own way, and that it should not cost her too dear. So he stood long watching her as she went shining across the great green plain with the light flashing from a thousand glittering points on her armor.

Now, the Princess rode by night and day, and not once did her courage fail or her arm grow weary. She left behind the green plain and the pleasant trees, and traveled in a grievous waste beyond the songs of birds, and anon she came to a woodland that was dark and old. She was sorely puzzled as to the habitat of the Microbe, for in his raids he came from east and west and north and south, and no one could tell if he had a permanent abiding-place. Often in the dusky shadows of the wood, she stopped to call a challenge: "What, ho! Come out and try thy skill!" But that was not his way of fighting, and he stayed hidden. Sometimes she inquired at a cottage door or at a shepherd's hut on the edge of the wood, but all thought that the lovely lady in armor was surely mad, wearing such strange clothing and asking such strange questions. Once she came upon a witch-wife who was gathering simples by a swamp in the wood.

"Is the pretty lady looking for the pretty knight that passed this way yestere'en?" asked the witch-wife, with a horrible leer of her sunken eyes.

The Princess elevated her eyebrows with a look of scorn.

"No," she answered coldly; "I am looking for the Microbe."

"How?" asked the witch-woman, with her hand behind her ear.

"The Microbe!" shouted the Princess.

"Is it a man, or a lady, or a place?"

"It's a monster!" shrieked the Princess. "It kills, and eats, and destroys." And then followed a faithful repetition of Auguste Philippe's description of the beast. The witch-wife laughed and rocked to and fro, her yellow teeth showing in her shrunken gums.

"Oh, deary, deary, deary!" she said, "there ain't any such critter, truly there ain't. I've lived here in the swamp seventy-nine year; I never saw one, and I sees pretty nigh everything."

"Who eats the youths and the maidens, and the old men and the children?" demanded the Princess sternly.

"How do I know? How do I know?" cackled the old woman. "I don't."

The Princess Victorine rode away, and behind her the witch-wife laughed.

"That's the way the pretty knight went," she called. "You'll find him further on."

The Princess indignantly turned her charger and rode in the opposite direction. That morning came her moment of great reward, for, by the side of a noxious swamp, a gray mist met her, blinding her eyes, and she thought she heard sounds of gurgling and lashing and clawing. Once she caught sight of the great shining eye of which Auguste Philippe had told her, and then she dimly detected the grin of teeth. Olivera Rinalda Victorine was sure that she had met the Microbe at last. With lifted spear, and with the shout, "A maiden to the rescue!" she rode into the floating cloud and thrust it through and through. Her spear crashed on—something; her charger seemed to trample a living creature under foot, and snorted with terror. Thrice came swift blows upon the Princess's shield, but whether they were of claws or tail, she could not tell. Her ears were deafened by the noise; her armor ripped in the gathers at the waist; her good steed for a moment lost his footing in the morass, but she reined him up, and, mad with the thrill of victory, struck out again and again with more than woman's strength. Then, was it fancy, or did she hear a roar as of mortal pain? Did she catch the sound of swift retreat of a hundred thousand wounded legs?

At home, upon the battlements, that morning, stood Auguste Philippe with some ladies of the court. (Lady Marie was lovely in deepest crêpe, and the Duchess was looking her best in heavy mourning.)

"It was in that direction that she went, did you say?" sobbed the Duchess, with a black-bordered handkerchief at her eyes.

The young king nodded.

"How can I bear it?" asked Lady Marie, raising her clasped hands to heaven. "Oh, your Highness, send out a searching party! Send fifty armed knights! Think what may happen at any moment!"

"Pshaw!" said Auguste Philippe the Twenty-fourth, "Victorine can take care of herself. She is four inches taller than I, and her arms are like iron. Let her be. She is foolish, but she has got to have her fling."

"In my day," said Lady Marie, "no modest girl would have suggested such a thing."

"I dare say," sighed his Majesty; "but the thing has got to come; they must sow their wild oats! She will come back all right."

Though Lady Marie did not know it, his Majesty Auguste Philippe then, as always, spoke the truth.

At that very moment, beyond the wide green plain, and beyond the sandy waste, a young knight, riding slowly, with his head bent down upon his breast, came upon a maiden sitting at the edge of a wood. Near her, cropping the grass, strayed a gray charger, with his bridle falling loose upon his neck. The maiden was curiously clad in shining armor, only her helmet was off, and tears were trickling down her cheeks. Now and then she dried them with strands of her yellow hair, and then she shuddered, gazing at a bloody spear that she held in her left hand.

"Fair lady," said the Knight, riding toward her, "tell me your trouble, that I may help you."

The Princess Olivera Rinalda Victorine looked up at him and sobbed, and her chain armor rose and fell upon her bosom. She had not cried this way since that memorable day on the stone bench in the garden, twelve years ago.

"I've—I've killed the Microbe!" gasped Princess Victorine.

"Indeed?" said the Knight, raising his visor and showing a pleasant smile upon a pale face. "And are you not glad?"

"Ye-es!" said the Princess, with a great heave of her bosom as she looked at the disfigured spear.

The stranger alighted from his horse and came slowly toward the Princess. He was tall and strongly built, but he walked as one to whom every motion brings pain.

"Are you quite sure that the beast is dead?"

The Princess nodded.

"Quite."

"I wonder," said the Knight meditatively, "if you brought away his head or a claw?"

"No, I didn't; but I feel very sure. Men are so skeptical!" said the Princess, with some heat.

"Not at all," answered the Knight courteously, "only your quest is the same as mine, and I should be glad to know that it is over. I, too, am hunting him."

A beautiful expression swept over the Princess's face and into her blue eyes. She looked less like a baby than she had done at any time for seventeen years.

"I thought men didn't care."

"Some do."

"Auguste Philippe doesn't—he only laughs, and so does old Lord Jean; but I think that this will convince them," and Princess Victorine triumphantly brandished her spear.

"Ah!" said the Knight, looking at it with sudden interest, "may I see your point?" But as he moved to take it, he gave a sudden groan and fainted at the Princess's feet.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Olivera Rinalda Victorine. In a trice she unlaced the Knight's helmet and corselet, and was horrified to find blood flowing from an open wound in his shoulder. Hastily she brought water in her helmet from a spring hard by, and bathed his forehead and eyes, and then ran for more to pour on the wound, saying, as she went, something unpleasant about her skirt of chain armor, which kept getting in her way. As she worked, the eyelids fluttered, and the dark eyes slowly opened.

"Are you hurt?" asked the Princess eagerly.

"I'm afraid that I am rather badly cut up," he answered, with a groan.

"Did that—Beast do it?" asked the Princess.

"It may be," said the Knight.

The Princess rose and put on her helmet.

"Where are you going?" asked the Knight.

"After It," said Victorine sternly.

"Lovely lady," he said feebly, "don't you think you ought to wait until I am better?"

"I'm not a lovely lady, I'm a warrior," said the Princess; "but of course I'll stay if you want me to."

"You are both," said the Knight. "Do you know I think that it would make me forget my pain if you should tell me of your fight."

So the Princess, with a shining face, told him of her battle in the mist, and of the monster with the great, glowing eye, and as she talked, she failed to see that the wounded man kept looking toward the spot where his gleaming helmet lay.

"And now," said the Princess reproachfully, with red flushing her cheeks, "tell me how you were wounded. Do you mind explaining how you came to be hurt in the back?"

"Somebody or something attacked me from behind," said the Knight, with a smile half hiding the look of pain on his face.

"The coward!" cried the Princess Victorine, in great anger.

"It may have been some one who did not know the rules of the game," said the Knight.

"That makes no difference," said Princess Victorine loftily.

"Well, it was a strange combat," remarked the Knight, "and the blows were the oddest I ever received. They came thrashing from all sides, in defiance of all the laws of fighting. Whether they came from man or beast I could not see—you know yourself that it is foggy in the woods, and I was disabled by the blow in the back."

"I know," nodded the Princess sympathetically. "You've been fighting that same monster that I killed." And for the life of her, she could not help a little feeling of triumph that the beast had gone down before her rather than before him.

"When did you kill him?" asked the wounded man.

"This morning," beamed the Princess. "When were you hurt?"

"Oh, I believe it was this morning," said the Knight carelessly.

"I wish, for your sake, I had done it sooner," said Victorine regretfully. One of her greatest charms was her slowness in putting two and two together. Now she had little time for it, for the Knight fainted again. For the first time in her life, the Princess repented of her aversion to smelling-salts. However, there was plenty of water in the spring, and she kept her best lawn handkerchief, which she had carried up her sleeve, wet upon the sick man's brow. Through the fever of that day she watched him, and all night, and again a second one, and on the third day there was a look of weariness upon her face that had never been there before. As the fever abated, and the Knight was aware of the tender nursing that he was receiving, he watched the Princess with eyes full of gratitude. She had laid aside her armor, and was becomingly attired in blue brocade, which she had worn underneath the steel. The sun shone pleasantly on her yellow hair, and if the color in her cheeks was less pink than it had been, it meant, with the dark shadows under her eyes, only new beauty. When he spoke his thanks, she turned red as a boy would have done, and asked him please to stop, which he did.

That afternoon the Princess grew confidential. She was sitting near the invalid, who was propped up on a mossy pillow, supported from underneath by her armor and her shield.

"Just feel my muscle!" said the Princess impulsively.

"I have!" said the sick Knight gravely.

"Why, when?" demanded the Princess. "Oh, you mean when I lifted your head. But look how it stands out."

He did so.

"You see," said Olivera Rinalda Victorine, "I am so unfeminine. I ought to have been a boy."

"Never!" cried the Knight vehemently.

The Princess looked at him in surprise.

"I'm very sure," she said gently. "I've known it ever since I was so high," and she measured off the stature of six years by holding her white hand above the ground.

"I don't agree with you," said the Knight. "You're not in the least like a boy, really. You do not look like one, nor use your arms like one."

"When have you noticed that?" asked the Princess, in surprise.

"Oh, lots of times," he answered evasively. "But tell me why you think so."

Sitting beside him, with the beech leaves making a flickering shade on her face and throat, the Princess told him all the tragedy of her life, her discovery of her initial great mistake, her unavailing efforts to set it right, and the persecutions she had suffered because she was not ladylike. It was the first confidence that she had made in all her life, and her cheeks flushed deep red. Overhead sang thrush and sparrow, and a little breeze came and played with her floating hair. Suddenly the Knight reached out and took the white hand in his and kissed it.

"Why did you do that?" asked the Princess softly. "To comfort me for not being a boy?"

"No," growled the sick man.

"Then why?" she persisted, drawing it away.

"Oh, I can't tell you," he groaned, "until I know whether I shall get well of this beastly wound."

But the Princess, taking both hands to arrange the wet handkerchief, suddenly found them prisoned and covered with kisses.

"It is because I love you," he moaned. "Don't you understand?"

Princess Victorine eyed him with curiosity, and shook her head.

"No," she answered, kneeling down and looking at him, "I'm afraid I don't. Nobody ever did before."

The Knight laughed out from the mossy green pillow.

"That's just what makes you so adorable."

"Won't you try to make me understand?" said the Princess. "I am very slow, but when I once learn, I never forget."

"Victorine," said the Knight, fixing his dark eyes on her, "I love you, and I need you. I love your hair and your eyes and the touch of your hands, and I want you to be my queen. You are a princess, I know, but then I am a prince."

Olivera Rinalda Victorine was silent a long time, kneeling on the moss.

"Are you angry?" asked the Knight, at length.

"No," said the Princess, in a whisper. "I think I like it." Then he smiled up at her, but did not even touch her hand.

"Tell me truly," said the Princess, "don't you mind my climbing trees and doing all those things?"

"Not a bit."

"Nor the device on my shield?"

He laughed and shook his head.

"Nor my wanting to go on a quest, and do all those unfeminine things?"

"Victorine," said the Knight, "it is the brave soul of you that I love. We will go on and fight together."

Then there was a sudden shining that was neither from the sun nor the Princess's hair, but from the light that sprang into her face, and when the wounded man lifted his arms and drew her toward him, she bent and kissed him on the eyes, and no one ever knew, she least of all, where she had learned that.

Three days more and three nights they stayed there, and the sick man's strength came slowly back. In the quiet they talked of many things in the past and many yet to come. Only once in all that time did Princess Victorine looked troubled.

"Dear," she said one day, "there are moments when I am afraid that you do not quite believe in me. I am not sure that you are convinced that I have really killed the Microbe."

"Beloved," said the Knight, putting down a piece of his armor, where he had been idly fitting the point of the Princess's spear into a great hole, "I believe in you utterly, only, there may be more than one, you know, and so our quest is not over."

On the fourth day they put their armor on, caught their steeds, and rode away. On the Princess's shield the maiden stood out bravely against the blue; the stranger Knight carried the device of an ugly worm transfixed by a glittering sword, and the motto was "I search." The maiden knight and the man looked at each other from under their visors.

"To the death!" he cried, and he spurred his steed.

"To the death!" echoed the Princess, dashing after him, and so they rode gallantly away. Whether they have found and fought the Microbe none can say, but this is known, that they are happy in the quest.