The Fair and the Dark Isolde
CHAPTER I.
DEATH OF THE QUEEN. THE KING REMARRIES, AND PROCEEDS ON A TOUR THROUGH HIS KINGDOM.
There once reigned a king and queen, and they had one little daughter called Isolde. She was the loveliest little maiden ever seen; her skin was white as the driven snow, her cheeks looked as if pink rose-petals had fallen on them, her lips were the colour of the reddest cherries, and the deepest blue of the summer sky seemed reflected in her eyes, while her long fair hair, reaching almost down to the ground, glistened like gold when touched by the sun’s rays.
Having no son of his own, the king had adopted his nephew Fertram as his heir to the crown.
The boy was as handsome as the little girl was lovely, and his father and mother being both dead, he was brought up at his uncle’s court.
He was two years older than Isolde; but the children were devoted to each other, and the parents often looked forward to the time when they would be old enough to be betrothed and married.