The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Light Princess, by George MacDonald

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Title: The Light Princess

Author: George MacDonald

Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #697]
Release Date: October, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT PRINCESS ***

Produced by Jo Churcher. HTML version by Al Haines.

THE LIGHT PRINCESS

by

GEORGE MACDONALD

Contents

1. What! No Children?
2. Won't I, Just?
3. She Can't Be Ours.
4. Where Is She?
5. What Is to Be Done?
6. She Laughs Too Much.
7. Try Metaphysics.
8. Try a Drop of Water.
9. Put Me in Again.
10. Look at the Moon.
11. Hiss!
12. Where Is the Prince?
13. Here I Am.
14. This Is Very Kind of You.
15. Look at the Rain!

1. What! No Children?

Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date,
there lived a king and queen who had no children.

And the king said to himself, "All the queens of my acquaintance have
children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my
queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mind to be
cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a good patient
queen as she was. Then the king grew very cross indeed. But the queen
pretended to take it all as a joke, and a very good one too.

"Why don't you have any daughters, at least?" said he. "I don't say
sons; that might be too much to expect."

"I am sure, dear king, I am very sorry," said the queen.

"So you ought to be," retorted the king; "you are not going to make a
virtue of that, surely."

But he was not an ill-tempered king, and in any matter of less moment
would have let the queen have her own way with all his heart. This,
however, was an affair of state.

The queen smiled.

"You must have patience with a lady, you know, dear king," said she.

She was, indeed, a very nice queen, and heartily sorry that she could
not oblige the king immediately.

2. Won't I, Just?

The king tried to have patience, but he succeeded very badly. It was
more than he deserved, therefore, when, at last, the queen gave him