id="Page_16" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 16]"/> said that some day, perhaps, he would give me his yellow cap——'

'And golden crown,' continued Rosamund, not noticing the interruption. 'You silly boy! they would obey the crown, not you, though you might happen to be wearing it. If you think it would be yourself they cared for, just go to London as you are now and order them about! But if I were you I'd rather be truly loved by one—person than be obeyed by one hundred thousand.'

'But if you were I, Rosamund, you'd be a man; and men are different.'

'So it seems.'

'What a noise that churn makes! Rosamund, I've felt all my life long that I was destined to be great. Why else did my mother wash the King's stocking; or the Appanage of Royalty promise me the cap?'

'You've been dreaming, you silly boy!'

'But can a dream that I've been dreaming all my life fail to come true? I don't say that to sit on a throne and rule a kingdom would be the happiest lot in the world; but, just as an experience, it would be good fun; and if one is predestined to it, you know—— Besides——'

'Well, your majesty—besides what?'

'Well, for instance, how would you like to be a queen?'

Rosamund stopped churning, wiped her hands on her apron, and tossed up her pretty chin with a saucy air.

'A queen, indeed! I beg to inform you, Master Raymond, that I am a queen already, and I have reigned longer and more despotically than ever you will, I fancy. Pray, has the Queen of England any subjects more devoted to her than my Osmund and Dorimund and Phillimund and Sigismund and Armand, and twenty others, are to me? Honeymead is my kingdom, and I do really reign, because my power is in myself; and fifty giants to march before me, and a hundred dwarfs to carry my train, wouldn't make me a bit more of a queen than I am now. So—thank you for nothing, Master Raymond!'

Raymond sat erect, with a great deal more animation in his look than he had yet shown.

'Listen to me, Rosamund,' he cried. 'It is true you are Queen of Honeymead. But what is Honeymead compared with London? And why should not you be as much a queen in London as you are here? You would be none the worse for a crown, and dwarfs and giants, though you might not need them: because no man could look at you and not be your faithful subject ever afterwards. And—Rosamund——'

He hesitated, and his cheeks were quite red. Rosamund glanced up at him and thought, 'How handsome he is!'

'Rosamund, I ask you this: if I become king will you sit beside me on the throne, and rule over Great Britain, France, and Ireland?'

Rosamund looked very grave.

'Do you mean to ask me to be your wife, Raymond?' she asked.

'I would have asked you long before, dearest Rosamund, but I waited hoping to be able to offer you a kingdom along with my love.'

'Well, it is a very kind offer,' said she, with a little smile and a sigh, 'and I thank you. But I must say no.'

'Rosamund!'

'If I were your wife I should have no time to attend to the duties of the Court; and if I were your queen I should have no time to attend to you. And I am so jealous that I could not let you neglect me for your kingdom; and yet I'm so ambitious that I couldn't let you neglect your kingdom for me. So it would not do either way; and, if you please, we won't talk any more about it.'

But as she said this her voice trembled, and tears were in her eyes. Then Raymond's heart overflowed with tenderness, and he went to her and took her hand.

'I could not be happy on a throne without you, Rosamund,' said he; 'but I could be happy, if you would marry me, without a throne.'

And because it cost him a good deal to make this sacrifice (even of something he had not got) his voice trembled a little too.

When Rosamund heard that she could resist no longer. She smiled such a smile as Dorimund and the rest would have given their farms to win from her; and said she—

'Oh, Raymond! I am a greater queen in having your love than——'

And then Raymond kissed her just on the place that the next word was coming out of, so the rest of the sentence was lost.

'But are you quite sure, dear Raymond, that you will be content to live here always?' she asked, when they had had a little more conversation of this kind.

Raymond smiled down on her, but he said nothing. Perhaps, in his secret heart, he was thinking that Destiny (which had appeared to him in the shape of the Appanage of Royalty so long ago) might still have some splendid gift in store for him and Rosamund, whereof the yellow cap would be but the symbol. And, if so, it would be foolish in them to bind themselves beforehand not to take advantage of it. So Raymond smiled at Rosamund in a way to show that, at all events, he loved her. And he did love her, no doubt.

'Poor boy!' said Rosamund, after another pause, smiling back rather mischievously, 'to think that you have been wearing this spade guinea all these years, and it has brought you nothing better than me at last!'

'If guineas could buy girls like you, my dear,' replied Raymond, 'the Mint would be kept working day and night. But I'll tell you what use we will make of this—we'll chop it in two, and each of us will wear a half, in token that we belong to one another. And then, no matter how long we may be separated, or what changes come over us, we should always recognise each other by these bits of gold.'

'But you don't think that changes will come over us, or that we shall be separated, Raymond?'

'Certainly not; but we may as well be on the safe side. For instance, if I were to go out and meet with an enchanter, and he were to turn me into a dwarf, and then I were to come back to you, how would you know me except by my half of the guinea?'

'I should trust my heart for that,' said Rosamund, softly. 'Still, we will wear the halves, so that everyone may see that we are but half ourselves when we are not together.'

This being settled, Rosamund fetched a hatchet, and Raymond put the guinea on a stool, and, with one strong blow, made it fly into two exact halves. Then he drilled a hole through Rosamund's half, and hung it round her neck by a piece of pink ribbon; and as for his own half, he strung it on the silken cord that he had always worn. So their betrothal was confirmed.

Just at this moment half a dozen of Rosamund's old suitors came trooping into the bar, and began calling for milk like a herd of calves. Then the lovers looked in each other's faces and smiled, and bade each other farewell very tenderly. Raymond went out through the cowyard; and Rosamund returned to the bar, where she served out fresh milk and thought about the half-guinea that was hidden in her bosom.

CHAPTER III.

THE GOLDEN DWARF.

Raymond strolled away towards the river. He wanted to think it all over. His betrothal was a sort of surprise to him. He had loved Rosamund, in a meditative way, so long that he had got used to not expecting anything more; but now, on the spur of the moment, he had told his love and received the pledge of hers, and it was all settled. He was happy, of course, for he believed Rosamund to be the prettiest and the best girl in the world. Still, he did not wish quite to give up the hope that something might happen to make their life more splendid. He said to himself that it was only for Rosamund's sake he hoped this. Perhaps that was the reason he hoped it so much.

The path down to the river was narrow and winding; it lay between