If anything comic occurred, she
smiled slightly, and where others would have wept, and thus distorted
their features, she only let her eyelids fall. She was moreover very
virtuous and, though but seventeen, was already called "learned." She
never said anything silly, and also, no doubt out of modesty, refrained
from expressing her wise thoughts. Wendelin approved of her silence, for
he did not like to talk; but his mother resented it. She would have
liked to pour her heart out to her daughter-in-law, and to make her son's
wife her friend and confidante. But such a relationship was impossible;
for, when she tried to share with her daughter the emotions which crowded
upon her, they rolled off the queen like water off the breast of a swan.
The people adored the royal pair. They were both so beautiful, and
looked so noble and princely as they leaned back in the corners of their
gilt coach during their drives and gazed into vacancy, as if their
interests were above those of ordinary mortals.
Years passed, and the choice of the Chancellor of the Council did not
turn out to be so fortunate as had at first appeared, for the queen gave
her husband no heir, and the house of Greylock was threatened with the
danger of dying out with Wendelin XVI.
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