ll of this duty, for the princess whom Wendelin
XVI. espoused on his twentieth birthday, was the daughter of a powerful
king, and so beautiful that it seemed as if the good God must have made a
new mould in which to form her. No more regular features were to be seen
in any collection of wax figures; the princess also possessed the art of
keeping her face perfectly unmoved. If anything comic occurred, she
smiled slightly, and where others would have wept, and thus distorted
their features, she only let her eyelids fall. She was moreover very
virtuous and, though but seventeen, was already called "learned." She
never said anything silly, and also, no doubt out of modesty, refrained
from expressing her wise thoughts. Wendelin approved of her silence, for
he did not like to talk; but his mother resented it. She would have liked
to pour her heart out to her daughter-in-law, and to make her son's wife
her friend and confidante. But such a relationship was impossible; for,
when she tried to share with her daughter the emotions which crowded upon
her, they rolled off the queen like water off the breast of a swan.

The people adored the royal pair. They were both so beautiful, and looked
so noble and princely as they leaned back in the corners of their gilt
coach during their drives and gazed into vacancy, as if their interests
were above those of ordinary mortals.

Years passed, and the choice of the Chancellor of the Council did not
turn out to be so fortunate as had at first appeared, for the queen gave
her husband no heir, and the house of Greylock was threatened with the
danger of dying out with Wendelin XVI. This troubled the duchess indeed,
but not so much as one would have supposed, for she knew that yet another
Greylock lived, and the mother's heart ceased not to hope that he would
return one day, and hand down the name of her husband.

She therefore persisted in sending messengers to those lands where, to
judge by the costume of the people, the appearance of the country and
buildings, as shown in the magic mirror, George was most likely to be
found.

Once she allowed her daughter-in-law to look into the smooth glass with
her; but never again, for it happened that the queen chanced upon a time
when George, poorly dressed, and with great beads of perspiration on his
forehead, sat hard at work over his drawing in a miserable room under the
roof; her delicate nostrils sniffed the air disdainfully, as if afraid
that they