“Ah!” cried Rosebud, “I see my stout, handsome father coming!” And she was off like an arrow to meet him.
“Ah, yes!” cried the queen; “there are my Brondé’s fair curls. And there is the red feather I placed this morning in his cap!”
Ah, poor Rosebud! And ah, poor Lily Queen! In one short hour after this, queen, ladies, servants, children, laborers,—all were prisoners! All bound, and on their way to some gloomy castle belonging to Magnus. Also the costly treasures of the palace, the gold, the jewels, the ermine robes,—everything of value which could be taken.
One precious thing only was left, and this precious thing was the king’s Rosebud.
It happened in this way.
Rosebud, with outstretched arms, ran to meet her father, her face beaming with joy, her heart brimming over with love for him. He had returned!—returned safe! Nothing had happened to him in the forest.
“Dear, dear father!” she cried.
As we all know, however, it was not really her father, but the wicked Magnus.
Now, when this wicked Magnus looked down into the face of Rosebud, he beheld there something which he never saw before. He had seen courage, he had seen strength, he had seen bravery; but a deep, o’erflowing love, like that expressed in the flushed and beaming face before him, he had never yet known.
And while he secured her as his prisoner, and saw her tears, and the horror and affright with which she regarded him, he felt a strange desire creeping into his heart to bring back that same look again; and, more than this, to have that beautiful look meant, really meant, for himself. That grim, bad man actually felt that the love of a little child would be a pleasant thing to have!