"I will assuredly not be bashful," said my father, very solemnly. "I will come and tell you at once, little lady, if I ever have the misfortune to offend the most noble Prince."
Then he bent his head and raised her hand to his lips. She bowed in return with exquisite reserve and hauteur; and, as it seemed to me, more with her long eyelashes than with anything else.
"Do you know, Black Man," she said—"for, you know, you are black, though you wear red clothes—I am glad you are not afraid of me. At home every one was afraid of me. Why, the little children stood with their mouths open and their eyes like this whenever they saw me."
And she illustrated the extremely vacant surprise into which her appearance paralyzed the infantry of her native city.
"I am glad my father left me here till he should come back. Do you know, I like your house. There are so many interesting things about it. That funny axe over there is nice. It looks as if it could cut things. Has it ever cut anything? It is so nicely polished. How do you keep it so, and can I help you?"
"I had just finished polishing and oiling it before I fell asleep," answered Gottfried Gottfried. "You see, little Princess, I had very many things to cut with it last night."
"What a pity the Prince had not time to wait and see you! He is so very fond of going out into the forest with the woodman. Once he took me to see the tallest tree in all our woods cut down with just such an axe as that—only it was not red. Have you ever seen a high tree cut down?"
"I have cut down some pretty tall ones myself!" said the Duke's Justicer, smiling quietly at her.
"Ah, but not as tall as my father! It is beautiful to see him strip his doublet and lay to. They say there is not a woodman like him in all our land."
Helene looked at my father, whose arms were folded in his great cloak.