child to her. When they laid him naked before her, she
stroked the little round body, the straight back, and well-shaped legs
with her weak hands, and felt comforted. He was a beautifully-formed,
well-developed child, her child, her very own, and nothing was lacking
save the grey lock. She never wearied of looking at him; at last she
leaned over him and whispered: "You sweet little darling, you are just
as good, and just as much of a Greylock as your brother. He will be
duke, but that is no great piece of luck, and we will not begrudge it to
him. His subjects will some day give him enough anxiety. He must grow
to be a mighty man for their sakes, and I doubt not that his nurse
gives him better nourishment to that end than I could who am only a weak
woman. But you, you poor, dear, little ill-omened mite, I shall nourish
you myself, and if your life is unhappy it shall not be because I have
not done my best."

When the Chief Priest came to her, to ask her what name she had chosen
for the second boy--the first, of course, was to be Wendelin XVI--she
remembered her dream, and answered quickly: "Let him be named George,
for it was he who killed the dragon."

The old man understood her meaning, and answered earnestly: "That is a
good name for him."

Time passed, and both of the princes flourished. George was nourished
by his own mother, Wendelin by a hired nurse. They learned to babble and
coo, then to walk and talk, for in this respect the sons of dukes with
grey locks are just like other boys. And yet no two children are alike,
and if any schoolmaster tried to write an exhaustive treatise on the
subject of education, it would have to contain as many chapters as there
are boys and girls in the world, and it would not be one of the thinnest
books ever published.

The ducal twins from the beginning exhibited great differences.
Wendelin's hair was straight and, save for the grey lock, which hung
over his left temple like a mark of interrogation, jet black; George,
on the contrary, had curly brown hair. Their size remained equal until
their seventh year, when the younger brother began to outstrip the
older. They loved one another very fondly, but the amusements that
pleased one failed to attract the other; even their eyes seemed to have
been made on different patterns, for many things that seemed white to
George appeared black to his brother.

Both received equal care and were never left alone. The older brother
found this