Constance Smedley

“ Of course she had heaps and heaps of suitors, For one thing, the Princess had caused a proclamation to be fairly widely circulated to the effect that her hand should be given in marriage to the man who could gain entrance to the castle; moreover, to keep herself before the public, the Princess would sometimes slip out by the back door of the castle and drive down into the town, and parade the streets in her golden carriage. Then she would look out of her eyes in a way that made every man feel anxious for nothing so much as to make the Princess loving and obedient ”

“ This was cruel, but then she had so little excitement; for, though the suitors who failed were well whipped as they ran down the road, all men look much the same under the lash. In fact, the only suitor who did not skip and howl was the fat old mayor. He came every Tuesday, he was so very ambitious; and he was too fat to do anything but waddle along like a tired frog.
But at last even the sight of the mayor palled on her, and she shut her eyes tight every Tuesday afternoon, and kept them shut until her Maids told her he had come and gone. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1941, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”