Page 53 - The Green Beaubird

some weighty matters of business had
intervened and kept them from doing
themselves the great honour the king had
proposed for them. Then said the king, 'You
must come to-morrow, and see that you fail
not.' Acquirino promised obedience, and the
king re turned to his palace, where he met his
mother and told her he had again seen the two

youths, that he was more firmly persuaded
than ever that they must be the children
promised him by Chiaretta, and that he would
feel no rest till they should have eaten at his
table. The queen-mother when she heard that
they yet lived was in sore terror, doubting not
that her fraud had been discovered, and thus,

struck with grief and terror, she sent for the
midwife and said to her: 'I surely thought the
children were dead by this time, and that we
should hear no more of them; but they are
alive, and we stand in peril of death. Look
therefore to our affair; otherwise we shall be
lost.' 'Noble lady,' said the mid wife, 'take
heart. This time I will work their bane without
fail, and you will bless me therefor, seeing that

they will trouble you no longer;' and the
woman, full of rage at her failure, _____

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