Katrina hurriedly unwrapped the package and was overjoyed to find in it her scarlet-and-gold tapestry, her bodkins, her skeins of scarlet and gold embroidery silk, and a little paper cleverly sewed on the very place where she had stopped her work the morning when her uncle came into her bower. On the paper was written, in her old nurse’s handwriting: “The counsellors kept me drugged for a week, then they told me you had gone away. I did not believe them, and I bribed the guard, with all the gold I had, to tell me where you are and to takes these things to you. Keep a good heart. I go away from the castle to help you.”
When the gray squirrel came, early that afternoon, Katrina told him what had happened and asked him what he thought.
The gray squirrel sat up very still and looked at the princess out of his round black eyes: “The gray owl will rescue you,” said the squirrel at last, solemnly.
“Who told you so?” asked the princess.
“I heard the bluejays talking about it this morning,” he said, winking his eyes rapidly.
“Who told the bluejays?” Katrina inquired.
“They are great gossips: they hear things by listening at the front doors of the other birds’ homes.” The squirrel looked so fierce all at once that the princess asked quickly: “Do you know the gray owl?” and before the squirrel could answer, began telling him about the gray owl she had seen outside her window the night before. “Do you know him?” she asked again.
“I know some gray owls,—I am sorry to say,” replied the squirrel, shaking his tail.
The princess opened her blue eyes very wide as she asked, “Why are you sorry?”
“Squirrels and owls cannot be friendly,” said the gray squirrel rather sadly.