"A day will come when you will envy your sister her bridegroom." And he hobbled away.
Elsa and Elfrida burst into a fit of laughter.
"Fancy," said Elsa, "our envying Heartsease!"
"Fancy," said Elfrida, "her ever having a bridegroom!"
Now Heartsease could not understand what they meant, for she did not know she was a fright; but their words made her thoughtful and sad, and she wondered what they were talking about. When she got home, she asked her father whether, when she grew up, she would find a bridegroom, and be married.
"Of course you will, dear little child," he said, and he took her on his knee, but she noticed that his eyes were filled with tears.
From that moment, Heartsease began to suspect that there was something wrong about herself, and that she was not quite the same as other children. One summer night, after she had been put to bed, her nurse and the nurserymaid were sitting by the nursery window darning some stockings. They thought Heartsease was asleep.
"Princess Elsa will be fifteen years old come Michaelmas," said the nurse.
"They'll be looking for a bridegroom for her soon," said the nurserymaid. "She's as tall as a grown-up lass already."
"I pity her husband," said the nurse; "she's a regular cross-patch she is, and as proud as a peacock."