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The boy started “I… I do not know She has not told me”

“If she does, when I have gone,” Dinarzad said thickly, “come to me in whatever Palace I live then, and tell me hoith her”

It was then that his sister cru arms and wept “I am afraid,” she whispered, over and over “I am so afraid”

He stroked her hair as he had seen their nurses do to the children, and in his heart he cursed his own unkindness toward his sister, poor lost beast that she was Her shoulders stopped their jerking and shivering after a time, and she looked up at him with red and wretched eyes

“Tell me, my brother, tell me a story Tell me a tale in which a woer, and the other wives love her as they would a sister Tell me a tale in which a woman is wed and her children are beautiful and whole, and live a long while, and her sister-wives teach her to make bread in the fashion of their country Telland finds that her heart is white as a silkworolden on the sill, and she then believes that she can live, and hold peace in her hand like a pearl Tell me a tale in which a woman is wed, and she is happy”

The boy’s lip tre vine He knelt at Dinarzad’s bare feet, and held her hands in his

“I do not know any stories like that,” he whispered

“Neither do I” She sighed “But it is not impossible that such tales are told”

Brother and sister sat with their heads together, and after a long while the boy told her of the thing which smoked and sparked in him, and she did not strike him or tell him he was foolish, and he loved her in that moment, his sister with her beautiful hair and her cold, thin fingers

Thecame white as a silkworm, and the snow drifted lazily down, unconcerned about the occasion A skeletal sunlight shone pale through the flakes, and all the court wondered at it The boy escaped, his arirl at the wrought Gate again, her cheeks lashed red by the cold He told her nothing, but they shed like old coerly over her eyes to close them

“There are hours and hours before the wedding!” he said excitedly “Let us find out how a spider changes her profession!”

The girl closed her eyes and lifted her chin, her breath fogging in the chill

“It took an “Eight legs are no guard against distance, and I am, in the end, so very small…”

THE

DRESSMAKER’STALE,