Part 5 (1/2)

_Prince_: I hope there is no harm in me coming hither. I would be loth to push on you ...

_First Aunt_: We thought it was right, as he was come to sensible years ...

_King_: Stop a minute, ma'am, give him his time.

_Prince_: My father ... and his counsellors ...

and my seven aunts ...that said it would be right for me to join with a wife.

_Queen_: They showed good sense in that.

_Prince: (Rapidly.)_ They bade me come and take a look at your young lady of a Princess to see would she be likely to be pleasing to them.

_First Aunt_: That's it, and that is what brought ourselves along with him--to see would we be satisfied.

_King_: I don't know. The girl is young--she's young.

_First Aunt_: It is what we were saying, that might be no drawback. It might be easier train her in our own ways, and to do everything that is right.

_King_: Sure we are all wishful to do the thing that is right, but it's sometimes hard to know.

_Second Aunt_: Not in our place. What the King of the Marshes would not know, his counsellors and ourselves would know.

_Queen_: It will be very answerable to the Princess to be under such good guidance.

_First Aunt_: For low people and for middling people it is well enough to follow their own opinion and their will. But for the Prince's wife to have any choice or any will of her own, the people would not believe her to be a _real_ princess.

_(Princess comes to door, listening unseen.)_

_King_: Ah, you must not be too strict with a girl that has life in her.

_Prince_: My seven aunts that were saying they have a great distrust of any person that is lively.

_First Aunt_: We would rather than the greatest beauty in the world get him a wife who would be content to stop in her home.

_(Princess comes in very stately and with a_ _fine dress. She curtseys. Aunts curtsey and sit down again. Prince bows uneasily and sidles away.)_

_First Aunt_: Will you sit, now, between the two of us?

_Princess_: It is more fitting for a young girl to stay in her standing in the presence of a king's kindred and his son, since he is come so far to look for me.

_Second Aunt_: That is a very nice thought.

_Princess_: My far-off grandmother, the old people were telling me, never sat at the table to put a bit in her mouth till such time as her lord had risen up satisfied. She was that obedient to him that if he had bidden her, she would have laid down her hand upon red coals.

_(Prince looks bored and fidgets.)_

_First Aunt_: Very good indeed.

_Princess_: That was a habit with my grandmother.

I would wish to follow in her ways.