"There, now, that is a true lover; that is spoken like a true lover," she cried, with her face radiant and proud. "Again, good Prue—let us hear what he says—ay, and before them all, too, I warrant me he is not ashamed of her."
So Prudence had to read once more Florizel's praise of his gentle mistress:
"'What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I'd have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens!'"
"In good sooth, it is spoken like a true lover," Judith said, with a light on her face as if the speech had been addressed to herself. "Like one that is well content with his sweetheart, and is proud of her, and approves! Marry, there be few of such in these days; for this one is jealous and unreasonable, and would have the mastery too soon; and that one would frighten you to his will by declaring you are on the highway to perdition; and another would have you more civil to his tribe of kinsfolk. But there is a true lover, now; there is one that is courteous and gentle; one that is not afraid to approve: there may be such in Stratford, but God wot, they would seem to be a scarce commodity! Nay, I pray your pardon, good Prue: to the story, if it please you—and is there aught of the little Mamillius forthcoming?"
And so the reading proceeded; and Judith was in much delight that the old King seemed to perceive something unusual in the grace and carriage of the pretty Perdita.
"What is't he says? What are the very words?"
"'This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
Ran on the greensward: nothing she does or seems
But smacks of something greater than herself;
Too noble for this place.'"
"Yes! yes! yes!" she exclaimed, quickly. "And sees he not some likeness to the Queen Hermione? Surely he must remember the poor injured Queen, and see that this is her daughter? Happy daughter, that has a lover that thinks so well of her! And now, Prue?"
But when in the course of the hushed reading all these fair hopes came to be cruelly shattered; when the pastoral romance was brought to a sudden end; when the King, disclosing himself, declared a divorce between the unhappy lovers, and was for hanging the ancient shepherd, and would have Perdita's beauty scratched with briers; and when Prudence had to repeat the farewell words addressed to the prince by his hapless sweetheart—
"'Wilt please you, sir, be gone?
I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine—
Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further,
But milk my ewes, and weep—'"