The blue-eyed prince was also bidden to come out to the Rondel, and he too dismounted from his horse at the foot of the little hill and came gaily walking up the path till he stood beneath the branches of the ash-trees.
He bowed low before the princess and laid his bunch of roses on the table in front of her.
She smiled graciously, for he was a comely young man, and he thereupon offered her his hand in exceedingly beautiful language.
“If you will marry me,” he said, “I will spend my days making verses about you. They will be sung throughout my kingdom. I will make a whole book of them. It shall be called ‘Songs of Queen Golden-bright.’” The princess thought this sounded rather attractive. One does not so often come across a prince who is also a poet.
But the ash-trees rustled softly above her head, and she remembered the question that she was to ask.
“Will you tell me what you most desire in a wife?” she said.
“Beauty,” said the prince promptly.
“But supposing,” said the princess, “that your wife fell downstairs and broke her nose, so that her beauty was spoilt. What then?”
“Oh, then of course I shouldn’t be able to make up any more verses about her,” said the prince. “I should get very irritable. How could I bear to look at a wife with a crooked nose? She would certainly have to be most careful not to break her nose.”
The princess laughed.