dding.

The Lady sat in a storm of sighs
Raised by her own heart-searching.
"To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie
Because love is an urchin."
So she sent her lass for her sable frock,
But the silly lass brought a silken smock
So fair to be seen
With a rosy shade
And a lavender sheen,
That was only made
For a bride to come from church in.

Now as Martin sang, Gillian got first on her elbow, and then on her
knees, and last upright on her two feet. And her face was turned full
on the duckpond, and her eyes gazed as though she could see more and
further than any other woman in the world, and her two hands held her
heart as though but for this it must follow her eyes and be lost to her
for ever.

"So far as I can see," said Joscelyn, "there's nothing to choose
between the foolishness of the maid and that of the mistress. But since
Gillian appears to have risen to some sense in it, for goodness' sake,
before she sinks back on her own folly, tell us your tale and be done
with it!"

"It is ready now," said Martin, "from start to finish. Glass is not
clearer nor daylight plainer to me than the conclusion of the whole,
and if you will listen for a very few instants, you shall see as
certainly as I the ending of The Imprisoned Princess."

THE IMPRISONED PRINCESS

There was once, dear maidens, a Princess who was kept on an island.

(Joscelyn: There are no islands in Sussex.

Martin: This didn't happen in Sussex.

Joscelyn: But I thought it was a true story.

Martin: It is the only true story of them all.)

She was kept on the island locked up in a tower, for the best of all
the reasons in the world. She had fallen in love. She had fallen in
love with her father's Squire. So the King banished him for ever and
locked up his daughter in a tower on an island, and had it guarded by
six Gorgons.

(Joscelyn: It's NOT a true story!

Martin: It IS a true story! If you don't say so at the end I'll give
you--

Joscelyn: What?--I don't want you to give me anything!

Martin: All right then.

Joscelyn: What will you give me?

Martin: A yellow shoe-string.)

By six Gorgons (repeated Martin) who had the sharpest claws and the
snakiest hair of any Gorgons there ever were. And their faces--

(Joscelyn: Leave their faces alone!

Martin: You're being a perfect nuisance!

Joscelyn: I simply HATE this story!

Martin: Tell it yourself then!

Joscelyn: What ABOU