“It shows her a child of the sunshine and the summer. My sweet Rose!” for so, to please the Queen, the baby had been named.
On the whole, however, while the summer lasted the Queen was too happy with her baby to give way to any real murmuring, and once or twice when she might perhaps have done so, there was wafted to her by the breeze the sound of a gentle “Beware!” and she knew that the summer fairy was near.
So for the first winter of the baby’s life she was on her guard, and nothing went wrong, except now and then when the King reproached his wife with overcare of the child when the weather was at all severe.
“Do you wish to kill her?” the Queen would reply, angrily.
“I wish to make her brave and hardy, like all the daughters of our race,” replied the King.
But not wishing to distress his wife, he said no more, reflecting that it would be time enough when the little girl could walk and run to accustom her to the keen and bracing air of the northern winter.
But in some strange, mysterious way, the princess, baby though she was, seemed to understand what her father felt about her. It was noticed that before she could speak at all, she would dance in her nurse’s arms and stretch out her little hands with glee at the sight of the snowflakes falling steadily. And once or twice when a draught of the frosty air blew upon her she laughed with delight, instead of shrinking or shivering.
But so well were the Queen’s feelings understood that no one ventured to tell her of these clear signs that little Rose felt herself at home in the land of the snow.