endings is silly talk. The King might have
sought the Woman in vain, or kept his vow, or drowned himself, or
ridden to the confines of Kent, for aught I care.

Joyce: Or I.

Jennifer: Or I.

Jessica: Or I.

Jane: Or I.

Martin: I am silenced. Tales are but tales, and not worth speculation.
And see, the moon is gone to sleep behind a cloud, which shows us
nothing save the rainbow of her dreams. It is time we did as she does.

Like shooting-stars in August the milkmaids slid from their leafy
heaven and dropped to the grass. And here they pillowed their heads on
their soft arms and soon were breathing the breath of sleep. But little
Joan sat on in the swing.

Now all this while she had kept between her hands the promised apple,
turning and turning it like one in doubt; and presently Martin looked
aside at her with a smile, and held his open palm to receive his
reward. And first she glanced at him, and then at the sleepers, and
last she tossed the apple lightly in the air. But by some mishap she
tossed it too high, and it made an arc clean over the tree and fell in
a distant corner by the hedge. So she ran quickly to recover it for
him, and he ran likewise, and they stooped and rose together, she with
the apple in her hands, he with his hands on hers. At which she blushed
a little, but held fast to the fruit.

"What!" said Martin Pippin, "am I never to have my apple?"

She answered softly, "Only when I am satisfied, as you promised."

"And are you not? What have I left undone?"

Joan: Please, Master Pippin. What did the young King look like?

Martin: Fool that I am to leave these vital things untold! I shall
avoid this error in future. He was more than middle tall, and broad in
the shoulders; and he had gray-blue eyes, and a fresh color, and a kind
and merry look, and dark brown hair that was not always as sleek as he
wished it to be.

Joan: Oh!

Martin: With this further oddity, that above the nape of his neck was a
whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it,
continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on the
back of a rabbit.

Joan: Oh! Oh!

And she became as red as a cherry.

Martin: May I have my apple?

Joan: But had not he a--mustache?

Martin: He fondly believed so.

Joan (with unexpected fire): It was a big and beautiful mustache!

Martin (fervently): There was never a King of twenty years with one so
big and beautiful.

She gave him the apple.