aw him.

"Who was that?" cried the priest.

"A lad that came to hold my horse," answered Osra hastily, and then she
turned fiercely on the miller.

"And that," she said, "was all you wanted! I thought you loved me."

"Aye, I liked you very well," said the miller. "You are a handy----"
A stamp of her foot drowned the rest. "But you should have come in
time," he went on.

"And this Gertrude--is she pretty?" demanded Osra.

"Gertrude is well enough," said the miller. "But she has only two
hundred crowns." And he put the purse, now full again, on the table
with a resigned sigh.

"And you shall have no more," cried Osra, snatching up her purse in
great rage. "And you and Gertrude may----"

"What of Gertrude?" came at this moment from the door of the room where
the sacks were. The Princess turned round swift as the wind, and she
saw in the doorway a short and very broad girl, with a very wide face
and straggling hair; the girl's nose was very flat, and her eyes were
small; but her great mouth smiled good-humouredly and, as the Princess
looked, she let slip to the ground a sack of flour that she had been
carrying on her sturdy back.

"Aye, Gertrude is well enough," said the miller, looking at her
contentedly. "She is very strong and willing."

Then, while Gertrude stood wondering and staring with wide eyes in the
doorway, the Princess swept up to the miller, and leant over him, and
cried:

"Look at my face, look at my face! What manner of face is it?"

"It is well enough," said the miller. "But Gertrude is----"

There was a crash on the floor, and the six hundred crowns rolled out
of the purse, and scattered, spinning and rolling hither and thither,
all over the floor and into every corner of the room. And Princess
Osra cried: "Have you no eyes?" and then she turned away; for her lip
was quivering, and she would not have the miller see it. But she
turned from the miller only to face Gertrude his wife; Gertrude's small
eyes brightened with sudden intelligence.

"Ah, you're the other girl!" said Gertrude with much amusement. "And
was that your dowry? It is large! I am glad you did not come in time.
But see, I'll pick it up for you. Nay, don't take on. I dare say
you'll find another husband."

She passed by Osra, patting her on the shoulder kindly as she went, and
then fell on her knees and began to pick up the crowns, crawling after
them all over the floor, and holding up her apron to receive