The Princess Elopes - Harlod MacGrath (trending books to read txt) 📗

real timidity. What would he do, this big, handsome fellow, who had turned out to be a prince, fairy-tale wise?

"Gretchen? I like that better than Hildegarde; it is less formal. Well, then, Gretchen, I can't explain it, but this new order of things has given me a tremendous backbone." He crossed the room to her side. "You will not wed my-my father?"

"Never in all this world!"-slipping around the table, her eyes dim like the bloom on the grape. She ought not to be afraid of him, but she was.

"But I-"

"You have known me only four days," she whispered faintly. "You can not know your mind."

"Oh, when one is a prince,"-laughing,-"it takes no time at all. I love you. I knew it was going to be when you looked around in old Bauer's smithy."

"Did I look around?"-innocently.

"You certainly did, for I looked around and saw you."

They paused. (There is no pastime quite like it.)

"But they say that I am wild like a young horse." (Love is always finding some argument which he wishes to have knocked under.)

"Not to me,"-ardently. "You may ride a bicycle every day, if you wish."

"I'd rather have an automobile,"-drolly.

"An airship, if money will buy it!"

"They say-my uncle says-that I am not capable of loving anything."

"What do I care what they say? Will you be my wife?"

"Give me a week to think it over."

"No."

(She liked that!)

"A day, then?"

"Not an hour!"

(She liked this still better!)

"Oh!"

"Not half an hour!"

"This is almost as bad as the duke; you are forcing me."

"If you do not answer yes or no at once, I'll go back to Barscheit and trounce that fellow who struck me. I can do it now."

"Well-but only four days-"

"Hours! Think of riding together for ever!"-joyously taking a step nearer.

"I dare not think of it. It is all so like a dream. . . . Oh!" bursting into tears (what unaccountable beings women are!)-"if you do not love me!"

"Don't I, though!"

Then he started around the table in pursuit of her, in all directions, while, after the manner of her kind, she balked him, rosily, star-eyed. They laughed; and when two young people laugh it is a sign that all goes well with the world. He never would tell just how long it took him to catch her, nor would he tell me what he did when he caught her. Neither would I, had I been in his place!


"Here's!" said the prince.

"It's a great world," added the duke.

"For surprises," supplemented the prince. "Ho, Hans! A fresh candle!"


And the story goes that his serene Highness of Barscheit and his Highness of Doppelkinn were found peacefully asleep in the cellars, long after the sun had rolled over the blue Carpathians.
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Publication Date: 05-21-2008

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