I do not know what we are to do." He looked again at the
priest, seeking counsel.

At this the Princess Osra, thinking that an opportunity had come, took
the purse of six hundred crowns from under her cloak, and laid it on
the table.

"What is this?" said the miller, for the first time showing some
eagerness.

"They are for you," said Osra as she watched him while he unfastened
the purse. Then he poured the crowns out on the table, and counted
them one by one, till he had told all the six hundred. Then he raised
his hands above his head, let them fall again, sighed slightly, and
looked across at the priest.

"I warned you not to be in such a hurry, friend miller," remarked the
priest.

"I waited two hours," said the miller plaintively, "and you know that
she is a handy wench, and very fond of me."

He began to gather up the crowns and return them to the purse.

"I trust I am a handy wench," said Osra, smiling, yet still very
nervous, "and, indeed, I have a great regard for the miller, but----"

"Nay, he does not mean you," interrupted the priest.

"Six hundred," sighed the miller, "and Gertrude has but two hundred!
Still she is a handy wench and very sturdy. I doubt if you could lift
a sack by yourself, as she can." And he looked doubtfully at Osra's
slender figure.

"I do not know why you talk of Gertrude," said the Princess petulantly.
"What is Gertrude to me?"

"Why, I take it that she is nothing at all to you," answered the
priest, folding his hands on his lap and smiling placidly. "Still, for
my part, I bade him wait a little longer."

"I waited two hours," said the miller. "And Gertrude urged me, saying
that you would not come, and that she would look after me better than
you, being one of the family. And she said it was hard that she should
have no husband, while her own cousin married a stranger. And since it
was all the same to me, provided I got a handy and sturdy wench----"

"What?" cried the Princess Osra; and the King was so interested that he
rose up from behind the water-butt, and, leaning his elbows on the
window-sill, looked in and saw all that happened.

"It being," pursued the Miller of Hofbau, "all the same to me, so that
I got what I wanted, why, when you did not come----"

"He married his cousin," said the priest.

A sudden roar of laughter came from the window. All three turned
round, but the King ducked his head and crouched again behind the
water-butt before they s