but oh, it is very hard on me!'

"The governess seemed very frightened and spoke sharply to the girl,
reproving her for annoying the Princess with her distress. The Princess
was surprised, for all her ladies hitherto had, by the king and queen's
desire, encouraged her to be kind and sympathising to those in trouble,
and to do all she could to console them. But as she had also been taught
to be very obedient, she made no remonstrance when her governess desired
her to leave the girl and return to the castle. But all that day the
Princess remained silent and depressed. It was the first time a shadow
had come near her happiness.

"The next morning when she awoke the sun was shining brilliantly. It was
a most lovely spring day. The Princess's happy spirits seemed all to
have returned. She said to herself that she would confide to the queen
her mother her concern about the poor girl that she had seen, and no
doubt the queen would devise some way of helping her. And the thought
made her feel so light-hearted that she told her attendants to fetch her
a beautiful white dress trimmed with silver, which had been made for her
but the day before. To her surprise the maidens looked at each other in
confusion. At last one replied that the queen had not been pleased with
the dress and had sent it away, but that a still more beautiful one
trimmed with gold should be ready by that evening. The Princess was
perplexed; she was not so silly as to care about the dress, but it
seemed to her very strange that her mother should not admire what she
had thought so lovely a robe. But still more surprised was she at a
message which was brought to her, as soon as she was dressed, from the
king and queen, desiring her to remain in her own rooms the whole of
that day without going out, for a reason that should afterwards be
explained to her. She made no objection, as she was submissive and
obedient to her parents' wishes, but she found it strange and sad to
spend that beautiful spring day shut up in her rooms, more especially as
in her favourite boudoir, a turret chamber which overlooked the castle
courtyard, she found the curtains drawn closely, as if it were night,
and was told by her governess that this too was by the king's orders;
the Princess was requested not to look out of the windows. She grew at
this a little impatient.

"'I am willing to obey my parents,' she said, 'but I would fain they
trusted me, for I am no longer a child. Some misfo