"Now thou art growing tiresome again, Margaretha, with all thy love, and thy piety, and thy conscience," interrupted Ulrica, pettishly, "_Your_ mother was only my foster mother; that I can well understand. Who _my_ real mother was thou mightest easily tell, if there was any real sisterly love in thee; but thou art not my sister after all. I would thou wert in a nunnery! there thou mightest mourn over me, and pray for me as much as it pleased thee, without plaguing me with it; yet, no! for then I must part from thee, and that I could not bear," she added, affectionately. "I am still a worldling, dear good Margaretha!" continued Ulrica, with child-like simplicity. "I have told you so a hundred times. All the misfortunes that happened in our childhood, or before I was born, I have neither seen nor shared in; how, then, canst thou require I should grieve over them? And what good would it do were I now to sit down with thee to mourn and weep? What our parents and their kindred have suffered or done amiss our blessed Lady must pray our Lord to make amends for, and forgive them; but that I have just as little to do with as thou. I thank my Lord and Maker, and our blessed Lady, that I have come into this fair world, and that I am not ashamed of my birth, even though I am but half a princess. The sorrow and degradation thou would'st have me despair over I care not to meddle with; either it is altogether idle talk, and then there is nought to mourn for; or it is true, and I must be satisfied with it as my destiny; and then I should still be a kind of princess; and what shame can it be to me that I should be called what I am, and that a knight of royal descent woos me, and would bring me to the station and honour which are mine by right?" "Alas! for thy honour and thy wooer, poor sister!" answered Margaretha, "there is not a true word in Sir Kagge; all know he is come of higher birth than he deserves, and it was not till he was outlawed and fled to Norway that he thought of disowning his own kindred, and tracing his pedigree in a disgraceful manner to the royal house of Norway. Such dishonourable fiction would show thee his character, if thou didst not share his perverted hankerings after the greatness which confers not honour." During this conversation Ulrica had arrayed herself in her richest attire, and it had become quite light. "Now look at me!" she said, contemplating herself in the polished shield on the wall. "Need I really be so terribly ashamed of my own existence, or wish I had never been born? That indeed would be shameful and ungodly. To speak honestly, Margaretha, should I doubt all that Sir Kagge hath told me of my descent and of my beauty, I ought to doubt my own eyes also, and every mirror I looked into would be just as false a flatterer and traitor as thou deemest him to be."