When she had finished washing she went and combed her hair before the glass. For she was a very artistic Princess, and liked looking at beautiful things, and so she liked sometimes to look at herself in the glass. Not that she was in the least conceited.
So she combed her hair with a gold comb, and when she had finished combing it, she put on her gold circlet as a sign of her rank, and then she said to the Owl, who had been sitting patiently on the looking-glass blinking at her as if he quite enjoyed himself:
‘Now, cherished Owl, you may sit on my shoulder again.’
When the Owl was again in his place he blinked in the glass at his own reflection as if the light were too strong for him, and he shut his eyes and drew in his neck and lifted up one foot into his feathers, as if he felt quite happy and comfortable, and the Princess smiled at his happy look, for she seemed quite to have forgotten her sorrow in the company of the Owl.
So she, with the Owl on her shoulder, went to the window. Here in the courtyard already a large crowd had collected to catch a glimpse of the Princess if possible, so that it fell about that when they saw her they raised a mighty shout of joy and pity:
‘The King is dead,’ they cried. ‘Long live the Queen!’ And throughout the city far and wide echoed and re-echoed the cry:
‘Long live the Queen’; and it seemed as if the waves of the sea murmured the sound.
The Princess, however, held out her little hand to still the tumult, and as if by magic the cries stopped.
‘Good people all,’ she said in clear ringing tones, ‘I thank you for your good wishes, and I will try always to be worthy of them as my father was. For to-day, however, rejoice not; remember that the great King Intafernes, the founder of the kingdom to which we all belong, has but just left the earth—sorrow for him but a short time; joy will come soon enough for all.’
So the crowd, silent and pensive for a time, dispersed in groups. More than one of them asked what had been perched on the Princess’s shoulder, and those who had been near enough, said that it was an owl—though what it meant they knew not.