hand, her form was smooth and slender, and her hair was falling down
from her head in buckles of gold. Her garments and dress were woven
with gold and silver, and the bright stone that was in the ring on
her hand was as shining as the sun.

Guleesh was nearly blinded with all the loveliness and beauty that
was in her; but when he looked again, he saw that she was crying,
and that there was the trace of tears in her eyes. "It can't be,"
said Guleesh, "that there's grief on her, when everybody round her
is so full of sport and merriment."

"Musha, then, she is grieved," said the little man; "for it's
against her own will she's marrying, and she has no love for the
husband she is to marry. The king was going to give her to him three
years ago, when she was only fifteen, but she said she was too
young, and requested him to leave her as she was yet. The king gave
her a year's grace, and when that year was up he gave her another
year's grace, and then another; but a week or a day he would not
give her longer, and she is eighteen years old to-night, and it's
time for her to marry; but, indeed," says he, and he crooked his
mouth in an ugly way--"indeed, it's no king's son she'll marry, if I
can help it."

Guleesh pitied the handsome young lady greatly when he heard that,
and he was heart-broken to think that it would be necessary for her
to marry a man she did not like, or, what was worse, to take a nasty
sheehogue for a husband. However, he did not say a word, though he
could not help giving many a curse to the ill-luck that was laid out
for himself, to be helping the people that were to snatch her away
from her home and from her father.