was cousin to Christina. He was short
and thick-set, and so like a little Dutchman that Christina often called
him "the little burgomaster." At the time of this sketch he had just
returned from a year of travel through Europe.

"And yet, Madam," said Mathias, her tutor, "all Europe hath for years
regarded Prince Karl as your future husband."

"And what care I for that?" demanded the girl, hotly. "Have done, have
done, sirs! You do weary me with all this. Let us to the hunt. Axel
Dagg did tell me of a fine roebuck in the Maelar woods. See you to the
courier of the Emperor and to his dispatches, Lord Chancellor; I care
not what you tell him, if you do but tell him no. And, stay; where is
that round little Dutchman, Van Beunigen, whom you did complain but
yesterday was sent among us by his government to oppose the advices
of our English friends. He is a greater scholar than horseman, or I
mistake. Let us take him in our hunting-party, Karl; and see to it that
he doth have one of our choicest horses."

The girl's mischief was catching. Her cousin dropped his serious look,
and, seeking the Dutch envoy, with due courtesy invited him to join the
Queen's hunt.

"Give him black Hannibal, Jous," Christina had said to her groom; and
when the Dutch envoy, Van Beunigen, came out to join the hunting-party,
too much flattered by the invitation to remember that he was a poor
horseman, Jous, the groom, held black Hannibal in unsteady check, while
the big horse champed and fretted, and the hunting-party awaited the new
member.

But Jous, the groom, noted the Dutchman's somewhat alarmed look at the
big black animal.

"Would it not be well, good sir," he said, "that you do choose some
steadier animal than Hannibal here? I pray you let me give you one less
restive. So, Bror Andersson," he called to one of the under-grooms,
"let the noble envoy have your cob, and take you back Hannibal to the
stables."

But no, the envoy of the States of Holland would submit to no such
change. He ride a servant's horse, indeed!

"Why, sirrah groom," he said to good-hearted Jous, "I would have you
know that I am no novice in the equestrian art. Far from it, man. I
have read every treatise on the subject from Xenophon downward; and what
horse can know more than I?"

So friendly Jous had nothing more to say, but hoisted the puffed-up
Dutch scholar into the high saddle; and away galloped the hunt toward
the Maelar woods.

As if blind to his own f