She grew at this a little impatient.
"'I am willing to obey my parents,' she said, 'but I would fain they trusted me, for I am no longer a child.

Some misfortune is threatening us, I feel, and it is concealed from me, as if I could be happy or at rest if sorrow is hanging over my dear parents or the nation.' "But no explanation was given to her, and all that day she sat in her darkened chamber playing sadly with her golden balls and thinking deeply to herself about the mystery.

And towards the middle of the day sounds of excitement reached her from the courtyard beneath.

There seemed a running to and fro, a noise of horses and of heavy feet, and now and then faint sounds of weeping.
"'Goes the king a hunting to-day ?' she asked her ladies.

'And whose weeping is it I hear ?' "But the ladies only shook their heads without speaking.
"By the evening all seemed quiet.