'
'A young man, the best and most amiable,' said the princess 'whom I
could not awake; I ask you where he is?'
'Madam,' answered the nurse, 'your highness asks these questions to
jest with us. I beseech you to rise.'
'I am in earnest,' said the princess, 'and I must know where this
young man is.'
'Madam,' insisted the nurse, 'how any man could come without our
knowledge we cannot imagine, for we all slept about the door of
your chamber, which was locked, and I had the key in my pocket.'
At this the princess lost all patience, and catching her nurse by
the hair of her head, and giving her two or three sound cuffs, she
cried, 'You shall tell me where this young man is, old sorceress,
or I will beat your brains out.'
The nurse struggled to get from her, and at last succeeded; when
she went immediately, with tears in her eyes, to complain to the
queen her mother, who was not a little surprised to see her in this
condition, and asked who had done this.
'Madam,' began the nurse, 'you see how the princess has treated me;
she would certainly have murdered me, if I had not had the good
fortune to escape out of her hands.' She then began to tell what
had been the cause of all that violent passion in the princess.
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