"Truly," said she, "that is a degree of consideration which looks like malice in the king. To make my husband a prisoner in his own house is to punish me fearfully, by condemning me steadily to his hateful society. My God, how cruel, how wicked is the king! My husband is a prisoner here! that is to banish my beautiful, my beloved Salimberri from my presence. Oh, when shall we meet again, my love, my adorer?" BOOK II. CHAPTER I. THE TWO SISTERS. "I have triumphed! I have reached the goal!" said Princess Ulrica, with a proud smile, as she laid her hymn-book aside, and removed from her head her long white veil. "This important step is taken; yet one more grand ceremony, and I will be the Princess Royal of Sweden--after that, a queen! They have not succeeded in setting me aside. Amelia will not be married before me, thus bringing upon me the contempt and ridicule of the mocking world. All my plans have succeeded. In place of shrouding my head in the funereal veil of an abbess, to which my brother had condemned me, I shall soon wear the festive myrtle-wreath, and ere long a crown will adorn my brow." Ulrica threw herself upon the divan, in order to indulge quietly in these proud and happy dreams of the future, when the door was hastily thrown open, and the Princess Amelia, with a pale and angry face, entered the room. She cast one of those glances of flame, with which she, in common with the king, was wont to crush her adversaries, upon the splendid toilet of her sister, and a wild and scornful laugh burst from her lips. "I have not, then, been deceived." she cried; "it is not a fairy tale to which I have listened. You come from the chapel?" "I come from the chapel? yes," said Ulrica, meeting the angry glance of her sister with a firm and steady look. Resolved to breast the coming storm with proud composure, she folded her arms across her bosom, as if she would protect herself from Amelia's flashing eyes. "I come from the chapel--what further?" "What further?" cried Amelia, stamping fiercely on the floor. "Ah, you will play the harmless and the innocent! What took you to the chapel?" Ulrica looked up steadily and smilingly; then said, in a quiet and indifferent tone: "I have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the Lutheran form of worship." Amelia shuddered as if she felt the sting of a poisonous serpent. "That signifies that you are an apostate; that signifies that you have shamefully outwitted and betrayed me; that means--" "That signifies," said Ulrica, interrupting her, "that I am a less pious Christian than you are; that you, my noble young sister, are a more innocent and unselfish maiden than the Princess Ulrica."