rn to lead a
soldier's life. Let the guns be fired!"

The procession moved on. Presently fire spurted from the embrasures of
the fort, and its batteries thundered in one great roar. The king looked
down at Christina. Her face was aglow with pleasure and excitement; she
clapped her hands and laughed, and cried out:

"More bang! More! More! More!"

This is only one of a score of stories that were circulated about the
princess, and the Swedes were more and more delighted with the girl who
was to be their queen.

Somewhat curiously, Christina's mother, Queen Maria, cared little for
the child, and, in fact, came at last to detest her almost as much as
the king loved her. It is hard to explain this dislike. Perhaps she had
a morbid desire for a son and begrudged the honors given to a daughter.
Perhaps she was a little jealous of her own child, who took so much of
the king's attention. Afterward, in writing of her mother, Christina
excuses her, and says quite frankly:

She could not bear to see me, because I was a girl, and an ugly girl at
that. And she was right enough, for I was as tawny as a little Turk.

This candid description of herself is hardly just. Christina was never
beautiful, and she had a harsh voice. She was apt to be overbearing
even as a little girl. Yet she was a most interesting child, with an
expressive face, large eyes, an aquiline nose, and the blond hair of her
people. There was nothing in this to account for her mother's intense
dislike for her.

It was currently reported at the time that attempts were made to maim
or seriously injure the little princess. By what was made to seem an
accident, she would be dropped upon the floor, and heavy articles of
furniture would somehow manage to strike her. More than once a great
beam fell mysteriously close to her, either in the palace or while she
was passing through the streets. None of these things did her serious
harm, however. Most of them she luckily escaped; but when she had grown
to be a woman one of her shoulders was permanently higher than the
other.

"I suppose," said Christina, "that I could be straightened if I would
let the surgeons attend to it; but it isn't worth while to take the
trouble."

When Christina was four, Sweden became involved in the great war
that had been raging for a dozen years between the Protestant and the
Catholic states of Germany. Gradually the neighboring powers had been
drawn into the struggle, either to serve the