"You love me, then?"
Her face was close to me, she was smiling trustfully and lovingly, and the answer came in the pressure of her lips to mine as our hearts met in pledge of our betrothal. After that we stood together there, just a pair of happy lovers, for whom the sun was made to shine and the earth to be beautiful, and forgetting all else save the one immeasurable fact of our avowed love. A commotion somewhere near the house recalled us to ourselves as the sounds floated across to our ears. They broke in upon our love ecstasy, and with a sigh Minna unwound her arms from my neck, and we stood hand in hand a minute.
"Better than friendship or cousinship, Minna?" I asked.
The glad glow on her cheeks and in her eyes answered me, and I kissed her again.
"And now we must be common-sense folk, for we have to decide what course to take."
"I can make no decision—except that you must not leave me," she said.
"Yet we are forgetting you are the Queen."
"Do you remember what I once told you would be my first command?"
"Your Majesty has been anticipated. I have told you all—and the assembly was certainly a very Privy Council."
"Yes. Just Queen—and——" she paused, and then, hiding her face on my shoulder, added softly, "and King. I want no other throne than this."