“At last, one day, the Knight Weakhart heard dreadful news.  A people called Vandals, rude and cruel barbarians, bloodthirsty and warlike, conquerors of nations, had arrived in immense numbers near the borders of that country, and in a few days they would pour over and ravage the land, killing the men and making slaves of the women.  He must fly.  One man could do nothing against such numbers.  He could not leave the Princess Charming behind him:  she would fall into the hands of the savages.  He knew that she had trust enough in him to go to the ends of the earth with him.  He had a sort of dim belief that she loved him.  What should he do?  Should he overcome his scruples and ask the lady of his love to wed him; or should he invite her to accompany him as his friend and sister?  Would it not be mean and contemptible to take advantage of her distresses, her solitude and the very danger that threatened the land, and thus coerce her into a marriage which might be distasteful to her?

“Now, my dear Estella,” I said, with a beating heart, “thus far have I progressed with my fairy tale; but I know not how to conclude it.  Can you give me any advice?”

She looked up at me, blushing, but an arch smile played about her lips.

“Let us play out the play,” she said.  “I will represent the Princess Charming—­a very poor representative, I fear;—­and you will take the part of the good Knight Weakhart—­a part which I imagine you are especially well fitted to play.  Now,” she said, “you know the old rhyme: 

“’He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who fears to put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all.’

“Therefore, I would advise that you—­acting the Knight Weakhart, of course—­take the bolder course and propose to Princess Charming to marry you.”

I began to see through her device, and fell on my knees, and grasped the Princess’s hand, and poured forth my love in rapturous words, that I shall not pretend to repeat, even to you, my dear brother.  When I had paused, for want of breath, Estella said: 

“Now I must, I suppose, act the part of Princess Charming, and give the foolish Knight his answer.”

And here she put her arms around my neck—­I still kneeling—­and kissed me on the forehead, and said, laughing, but her eyes glistening with emotion: 

“You silly Knight Weakhart, you are well named; and really I prefer the ogre whose head you were cruel enough to cut off, or even one of those hideous Vandals you are trying to frighten me with.  What kind of a weak heart or weak head have you, not to know that a woman never shrinks from dependence upon the man she loves, any more than the ivy regrets that it is clinging to the oak and cannot stand alone?  A true woman must weave the tendrils of her being around some loved object; she cannot stand alone any more than the ivy.  And so—­speaking, of course, for the Princess Charming!—­I accept the heart and hand of the poor, weak-headed Knight Weakhart.”