is outside at the kitchen door at this minute, and
as if questioning after something, and it a half-score
and seven years since I knew him to come
out of his cave.

_King_: Do not! He might waken up the Dragon
and put him in mind of the girl, for to make his
own foretelling come true.

_Nurse_: Ah, such a thing cannot be! The
poor innocent child! _(Weeps.)_

_Queen_: Where's the use of crying and roaring?
The thing must be stopped and put an end to.
I don't say I give in to your story, but that would
be an unnatural death. I would be scandalised
being stepmother to a girl that would be swallowed
by a sea-serpent!

_Nurse_: Ochone! Don't be talking of it at
all!

_Queen_: At the King of Alban's Court, one
of the royal family to die over, it will be naturally
on a pillow, and the dead-bells ringing, and a
burying with white candles, and crape on the
knocker of the door, and a flagstone put over the
grave. What way could we put a stone or so
much as a rose-bush over Nuala and she in the
inside of a water-worm might be ploughing its way