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“Why, what have you done to your face, John? You have a big scratch there.” Insensibly the colours change, How hard he had hit Tellef in the face! How the blood had spurted out from his nose! It was too bad. Tellef had not been out to play last night or today either. How that jacket of his looked, torn that way! Really, it was a perfect shame..
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Conrad
When the King heard him speak so boldly, he did not know what to think, and he felt half inclined to let them and their sister go without putting them to death; but his chief adviser, who was an arrant flatterer, dissuaded him from this, telling him that if he did not revenge the insult that had been put upon him, all the world would make fun of him, and look upon him as nothing better than a miserable little King worth a few coppers a day. The King thereupon swore that he would never forgive them, and ordered them to be brought to trial at once. This did not take long; the judges had only to look at the real Rosette's portrait and then at the Princess who had arrived, and, without hesitation, they ordered the prisoners' heads to be cut off as a punishment for having lied to the King, since they had promised him a beautiful Princess, and had only given him an ugly peasant girl. They repaired with great ceremony to the prison to read this sentence to them; but the prisoners declared that they had not lied, that their sister was a Princess, and more beautiful than the day; that there must be something under this which they did not understand, and they asked for a respite of seven days, as before that time had expired their innocence might have been established. The King of the Peacocks, who had worked himself up to a high pitch of anger, could with great difficulty be induced to accord them this grace, but at last he consented. “For the land’s sake!” said Lisa, laying John’s trousers, which she was patching, down in her lap. She shrieked, and fainted. On recovering, she found herself supported by Ferdinand and Hippolitus, who had stolen this moment of silence and security to gain admittance to her presence. Hippolitus came to urge a proposal which despair only could have suggested. 'Fly,' said he, 'from the authority of a father who abuses his power, and assert the liberty of choice, which nature assigned you. Let the desperate situation of my hopes plead excuse for the apparent boldness of this address, and let the man who exists but for you be the means of saving you from destruction. Alas! madam, you are silent, and perhaps I have forfeited, by this proposal, the confidence I so lately flattered myself I possessed. If so, I will submit to my fate in silence, and will to-morrow quit a scene which presents only images of distress to my mind.' Thus she lamented; and although the King wrote daily to her, and sent her good news of the progress of the siege, she grew more and more unhappy, and at last determined that she would return to him. Knowing, however, that the officers who were in attendance upon her had received orders not to take her back, unless the King sent a special messenger, she kept her design secret, but ordered a small chariot to be built for her, in which there was only room for one, saying that she should like sometimes to accompany the hunt. She drove herself, and followed so closely on the hounds, that the huntsmen were left behind; by this means she had sole command of her chariot, and could get away whenever she liked. Her only difficulty was her ignorance of the roads that traversed the forest; but she trusted to the kindness of Providence to bring her safely through it. She gave word that there was to be a great hunt, and that she wished everybody to be there; she herself would go in her chariot, and each was to follow a different route, that there might be no possibility of escape for the wild beasts. Everything was done according to her orders. The young Queen, feeling sure that she should soon see her husband again, dressed herself as becomingly as possible; her hat was covered with feathers of different colours, the front of her dress lavishly trimmed with precious stones, and her beauty, which was of no ordinary kind, made her seem, when so adorned, a second Diana..
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