But his words did not please the Queen, though they were so kindly meant.
With the possession of the child, though she was so overjoyed to have her, the young Queen's wayward and dissatisfied spirit began to return. She seemed to think the Princess was to be only hers, that the nation and even the King, must give way, in everything that concerned the child, to its mother's will. She was even displeased one day when she overheard some of her ladies admiring the beautiful color of the child's hair and saying that it showed her a true daughter of the North.
"No such thing," said the Queen. "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 the child to give way to any real murmurings 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 the Summer Fairy was near.
So for the first winter of the child's life the Queen 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.
"I wish to make her brave and hardy," said the King.
In some strange way, however, the princess, child 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 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 Rose felt herself at home in the land of snow.
The winter passed and the summer came again—the second summer of the child's life.
She had grown like the flowers and was as happy as the butterflies. Never was a sweeter or merrier child. The Queen idolized her and the King loved her quite as dearly, though in a wiser way. And that summer passed very happily.