“How now, young mistress! Is this seemly conduct toward a stranger and an imperial courier?”
The girl now for the first time noticed the presence of a stranger. Too excited in her mad dash into the room to distinguish him from one of the palace servants, she only learned the truth by the courier’s harsh words. A sudden change came over her. She drew herself up haughtily and said to the attendant:
“And who is this officious stranger, Klas?”
The tone and manner of the question again surprised the courier, and he looked at the speaker, amazed. What he saw was an attractive young girl of thirteen, short of stature, with bright hazel eyes, a vivacious face, now almost stern in its expression of pride and haughtiness. A man’s fur cap rested upon the mass of tangled light-brown hair which, tied imperfectly with a simple knot of ribbon, fell down upon her neck. Her short dress of plain gray stuff hung loosely about a rather trim figure; and a black scarf, carelessly tied, encircled her neck. In short, he saw a rather pretty, carelessly dressed, healthy, and just now very haughty-looking young girl, who seemed more like a boy in speech and manners,--and one who needed to be disciplined and curbed.
Again the question came: “Who is this man, and what seeks he here, Klas? I ask.”
“‘T is a courier with dispatches for the council, Madam,” replied the man.
“Give me the dispatches,” said the girl; “I will attend to them.”
“You, indeed!” The courier laughed grimly. “The dispatches from the Emperor of Germany are for no hairbrained maid to handle. These are to be delivered to the Council of Regents alone.”
“I will have naught of councils or regents, Sir Courier, save when it pleases me,” said the girl, tapping the floor with an angry foot. “Give me the dispatches, I say,--I am the King of Sweden!”
“You--a girl--king?” was all that the astonished courier could stammer out. Then, as the real facts dawned upon him, he knelt at the feet of the young queen and presented his dispatches.
“Withdraw, sir!” said Christina, taking the papers from his hand with but the scant courtesy of a nod; “we will read these and return a suitable answer to your master.”
The courier withdrew, still dazed at this strange turn of affairs; and Christina, leaning carelessly against the council-table, opened the dispatches.