marry you for
that?"

A wistful, rather nonplussed expression came into the Prince's face.

"I do not know," said he, "why women marry at all; they are so
wonderful, so beautiful, so good all by themselves; we men are not
beautiful at all--not our bodies nor our hearts. And I--oh, well!"--he
drew down his sleeve as he spoke,--"I have nothing more beautiful to
offer you than those--my dragons. If you do not want them, why should
you want me?"

"But women don't marry dragons!" objected Charlotte, scarcely less
puzzled than amused.

"Oh! Do they not? I think you are wrong. Many of them marry only because
the man they marry makes them afraid. I have seen it done in the country
where I come from;--Germany I mean--and everywhere here it is the same.
I am not a dragon myself; but if you are that sort of woman, these might
help you to pretend. Do you not think you could be afraid of me enough
to marry me?"

This was strange wooing.

"I am not afraid of you at all," said Charlotte; "but I like you--very
much."

"Ah, then you want me to be quite another person? Very well, that make
it so much easier. Then now I will tell you what I am really like; and
you will try not to laugh, will you not?"

Charlotte composed her countenance to as near gravity as was possible,
and the Prince went on.

"I am just one little child that has lost its way through having grown
so big and strong. And I want some nice, kind woman, that is more
sensible than I, to be a mother to me--to take me in her arms and let me
cry to her when I am afraid. Herr Gott! I am so frightened
sometimes--how I have cried! Of the dark night, of loneliness, of the
stillness when there is no noise near, but only _that_, something far,
far away, that comes! Everything frightens me when I am alone. Fighting?
No, I am not afraid of that; it is this wait, wait, wait--for what? And
I want to have one woman just at my heart, and her voice at my ear, and
children--yes, plenty of them; and when I have plenty children, then I
shall not be afraid of loneliness any more."

"But if you so dislike it, why did you go away into the wilds?"

"Ah! I had to run away from the music. That was awful! And then--have
you lived in a German town?--that is awful too. Do not think that I am
asking you to live in a German town? No: I could not be so cruel. So now
I tell you my secret."

"You mean the dragons?"

"The dragons? No, no! They go with me,--they are part of me, they are
'in