“She hath the face of the Grand Gustavus,” he said. “Look, brothers, the nose, the eyes, the very brows are his.” “Aye,” said Oxenstiern; “and she is a soldier’s daughter. I myself did see her, when scarce three years old, clap her tiny hands and laugh aloud when the guns of Calmar fortress thundered a salute. ‘She must learn to bear it,’ said Gustavus our king; ‘she is a soldier’s daughter.’” “Hail, Christina!” shouted the assembly, won by the proud bearing of the little girl and by her likeness to her valiant father. “We will have her and only her for our queen!” “Better yet, brothers,” cried Lars Larsson, now her most loyal supporter; “she sits upon the throne of the kings; let her be proclaimed King of Sweden.” And so it was done. And with their wavering loyalty kindled into a sudden flame, the States of Sweden “gave a mighty shout” and cried as one man, “Hail, Christina, King of Sweden!” There was strong objection in Sweden to the rule of a woman; and the education of this little girl was rather that of a prince than of a princess. She was taught to ride and to shoot, to hunt and to fence, to undertake all of a boy’s exercises, and to endure all a boy’s privations. She could bring down a hare, at the first shot, from the back of a galloping horse; she could outride the most expert huntsman in her train. So she grew from childhood into girlhood, and at thirteen was as bold and fearless, as wilful and self-possessed as any young fellow of twenty-one. But besides all this she was a wonderful scholar; indeed, she would be accounted remarkable even in these days of bright girl-graduates. At thirteen she was a thorough Greek scholar; she was learned in mathematics and astronomy, the classics, history, and philosophy; and she acquired of her own accord German, Italian, Spanish, and French. Altogether, this girl Queen of the North was as strange a compound of scholar and hoyden, pride and carelessness, ambition and indifference, culture and rudeness, as ever, before her time or since, were combined in the nature of a girl of thirteen. And it is thus that our story finds her. One raw October morning in the year 1639, there was stir and excitement at the palace in Stockholm. A courier had arrived bearing important dispatches to the Council of Regents which governed Sweden during the minority of the Queen, and there was no one to officially meet him. Closely following the lackey who received him, the courier strode into the council-room of the palace. But the council-room was vacant.