After thrusting the little boat once more forth into the full current of the river, Theolette ran to the palace and went to her own room. With a little sigh, she folded away the worn red hunting-dress and cap she had been wearing—the riding-habit of country wool had been left behind somewhere at the return of spring—and crept into her little silken bed. So weary was she that scarce had her head touched the pillow ere she was sound asleep.
When she opened her eyes again, a whole day and a night had passed, the City had risen from the winter sleep, and her mother stood bending over her with an amused smile. Loud and clear and joyous the silver bells of the spring-awakening were ringing o’er the town.
“Good gracious, Theolette,” said her mother, “but what a sleeper you are! I’ve been shaking you for the last ten minutes. Get up now, that’s a dear, and wear your rose frock to the grand spring breakfast.”
A little later Theolette, feeling just the tiniest bit bewildered, sat down to breakfast with her father the King, her mother the Queen, and the two Princes her brothers. And there, moved by an impulse of truth and courage—for, though wilful, Theolette was as faithful to high honor as a vowed knight—the Princess told them all the tale of her runaway adventures. To her surprise, she could win none of them to believe her story!
“You have been dreaming, Theolette,” said her father, gravely shaking his head and reaching for a royal muffin. “But I called you myself!” exclaimed her mother, pausing from her royal marmalade. And as for Theolette’s two brothers, they pretended that polite disbelief which young men find so delightfully irritating when teasing their sisters.
Weeks passed, spring followed winter into the cupboard of time, and Theolette could find no one to believe her story. Weary of insisting, and shaken by the unbelief of those about her, the Princess began to wonder in her own heart if it were not all a dream. Nothing remained of it all, and it was so like a dream!
Her head bowed low, her eyes full of doubt and memories, the Princess mused all day, and finally grew so pale that her royal parents became quite alarmed, and took counsel to send their daughter on a long visit to her aunt, the Queen of the Golden Mountain. On the morn of departure, Theolette walked to the great hall of state to say farewell.
“A dream, a dream; was it only a dream?” thought Theolette. And she saw again the winter world, and the polar bears’ ball, with the candles burning in chandeliers of icicles, and the skating horse, and the pleasant youth in green who had saved her from the robbers. Could it have been only a dream? With a sigh and a doubting shake of her head, the Princess took her place at the head of her ladies and approached her father and mother.
And now, of a sudden, from the sunny street below the pillared window, a voice was heard singing. And the voice sang an old song of a soldier who had fought in the wars and returned in the spring to plough the dear earth he had loved and defended. A hush fell over the astounded assembly.