"No, my child; but I have some unpleasant matters to think about, which thou canst not understand. But take no heed of this. Do not sit here alone, in the twilight. Get a light, and let thy maidens come in, and sing ballads with thee. Thou mayest sing ballads, my child: it is suiting to thine years. What I said about ballads I did not mean to refer to thee. Only, be cheerful now, and be not uneasy on my account. Nothing shall happen." With these words, he patted her kindly on the cheek, and departed. It began to grow dark. Her father's mysterious inquietude and ill-disguised anxiety had made a singular impression on the young girl, who otherwise had never known fear; and, as she now sat alone, in the great gloomy hall, various alarming thoughts took possession of her mind. She had heard many, in part unfounded, rumours of pirates and robbers: these she cared little about. But that the land was full of secret traitors, who threatened the destruction of the king, and all his more trusty and attached friends, was a general, and, to the Lady Ingé, a far more distressing rumour. This important fortress had usually been kept strongly barred against every stranger who did not, in the first place, give his name and errand with much preciseness. Why an exception was to be made this evening, she could not comprehend; and why her father had been induced to leave the castle at a time when he expected important and distinguished guests, was equally inconceivable. From his uneasy attention to the direction of the wind, and his disappointment when he found it easterly, as well as from his command not to ask the strangers their names, or whither they were journeying, she supposed that he might be expecting some friends, who were eluding pursuit, and intended passing over to Sweden that night. Notwithstanding her father's reserve and cautiousness, she had observed that he took a zealous part in the quarrel Stig Andersen and his kinsmen were fomenting against the king. She was, however, only imperfectly acquainted with the reasons for this quarrel. That the king had outraged Stig Andersen's wife, and had been denounced by the powerful marsk, she had heard; but of the particular circumstances she knew nothing. According to her notions of a king, and the idea she had formed in her childhood, from her mother's descriptions of the great Waldemars, she entertained such a deep reverence for the name of royalty, that she could not conceive how a subject should be offended with his king, or that he should, in anywise, have a right to oppose himself to his sovereign. That her father should be induced, either from friendship, or on account of family ties, to forget his allegiance to the king, was a thought she dreaded to dwell distinctly upon; but now she secretly began to fear such a disaster, which, of all others, she considered the greatest; and, for the first time in her life, she felt herself in a state of anxiety. She looked round the gloomy