"The next morning when she awoke the sun was shining brilliantly. It was a most lovely spring day. The Princess's happy spirits seemed all to have returned. She said to herself that she would confide to the queen her mother her concern about the poor girl that she had seen, and no doubt the queen would devise some way of helping her. And the thought made her feel so light-hearted that she told her attendants to fetch her a beautiful white dress trimmed with silver, which had been made for her but the day before. To her surprise the maidens looked at each other in confusion. At last one replied that the queen had not been pleased with the dress and had sent it away, but that a still more beautiful one trimmed with gold should be ready by that evening. The Princess was perplexed; she was not so silly as to care about the dress, but it seemed to her very strange that her mother should not admire what she had thought so lovely a robe. But still more surprised was she at a message which was brought to her, as soon as she was dressed, from the king and queen, desiring her to remain in her own rooms the whole of that day without going out, for a reason that should afterwards be explained to her. She made no objection, as she was submissive and obedient to her parents' wishes, but she found it strange and sad to spend that beautiful spring day shut up in her rooms, more especially as in her favourite boudoir, a turret chamber which overlooked the castle courtyard, she found the curtains drawn closely, as if it were night, and was told by her governess that this too was by the king's orders; the Princess was requested not to look out of the windows. She grew at this a little impatient. "'I am willing to obey my parents,' she said, 'but I would fain they trusted me, for I am no longer a child. Some misfortune is threatening us, I feel, and it is concealed from me, as if I could be happy or at rest if sorrow is hanging over my dear parents or the nation.' "But no explanation was given to her, and all that day she sat in her darkened chamber playing sadly with her golden balls and thinking deeply to herself about the mystery. And towards the middle of the day sounds of excitement reached her from the courtyard beneath. There seemed a running to and fro, a noise of horses and of heavy feet, and now and then faint sounds of weeping. "'Goes the king a hunting to-day?' she asked her ladies. 'And whose weeping is it I hear?' "But the ladies only shook their heads without speaking.