“Florimond? Florimond?” cried the Lord Chancellor of the College, stepping forward, “there is but one Florimond in the city and, as I live, this youth is he!” And presently all beheld that the great King and the runaway student were indeed father and son. To pardon the runaway youth and loose him from his bonds was but a moment’s task. This done, a royal herald proclaimed a three days’ holiday.
On the last evening of the festival, Florimond and Theolette walked alone to a great balcony and looked forth over the city, the river, and the mountain-circled plain. It was midsummer eve, the warm night was sweet with the fragrance of many flowers, and the music of lutes and viols sounded faintly through the pleasant air.
“Was it a wonder that I ran away,” said the Prince, laughing, “when I wasn’t born a winter sleeper?”
“The winter—ah, what fun it all was!” answered Theolette. “I wonder if I shall ever see it again.”
“You shall see it every year if you will only consent to be Princess of the North,” replied Florimond, with a gallant smile. And then and there the two runaways pledged their troth. The wedding over, Florimond returned to his own land, taking Theolette with him; and, unless you have heard to the contrary, they are living there happily still.
AILEEL AND AILINDA
Once upon a time a company of jugglers, acrobats, and other strays, traveling afoot to the Fair of the Golden Bear, arrived at twilight in a glen close by a village and encamped there for the night. From eventide till late into the dark, the watchful villagers beheld their huge fire blazing behind the dark columns of the trees; but at dawn all was still, for the wanderers had risen by the glow of the morning star, and fared away toward the sea.
Now it came to pass that an old villager, whose lands lay beyond the glen, rose early that morn, and with his hoe on his shoulder walked to his labor through the sunrise, the quiet, and the dew. Arriving at the glen, he turned aside for a moment from the path and out of curiosity wandered in to gaze at the trampled grass and the burned circle of the fire. Suddenly he caught his breath with a start. Two little children, a boy in tattered leather and a girl in a ragged frock of blue, were lying fast asleep on a pile of yellow straw.
And now the two children stood, hand in hand, in the house of the Master Villager, gazing up into the faces of a dozen gathered there to see them and to question. The little boy, who was brown-haired and brown-eyed, bore himself bravely and appeared sturdy and strong, whilst the tiny girl, whose blue eyes were full of frightened tears, seemed very gentle and shy. Of who their parents were, and of how it had fortuned that they had been thus forsaken, neither the little boy nor the girl could tell; indeed the most that could be gathered from them was that they were not brother and sister, and that the lad’s name was Aileel and the girl’s, Ailinda.
Forlorn, forsaken, and unknown, the children of the wanderers remained in the village and were given to certain villagers to house and to keep. It was the lot of Aileel to become the foster son and little apprentice of Braulio, the good smith, whilst tiny Ailinda fell into the hands of Tharbis, the grudging and envious miser of the town.