e-mason sent his promising
apprentice. Alas! how long the poor child had to bend over his
drawing-board and his slate doing dreadful sums, whereas Wendelin only
studied two hours a day under a considerate tutor who gently coaxed
him along the paths of learning. Everything that seemed difficult was
carefully removed from his way, and everything that was unpalatable was
coated with sugar before being presented to him. Thus even in school the
fortunate child trod a path strewn with roses without thorns, and if
he yawned now and then in his tutor's face, the latter could flatter
himself that the young prince yawned much more frequently over what
other people considered pleasures and amusements.

When he attained his sixteenth birthday, he was declared to be of
age, for princes mature earlier than other men. Soon afterwards he was
crowned, not duke, but king, and it was remarked that he held his lace
handkerchief oftener than ever to his mouth.

The state prospered under his government; for his mother and councillors
knew how to choose men who understood their work and did it well. These
men acted as privy council to the king. One of them was put in charge of
the army, a second of the Executive, a third of the customs and taxes,
a fourth of the schools, a fifth exercised the king's right of pardon, a
sixth, who bore the title the Chancellor of the Council, was obliged to
do the king's thinking. To this experienced man was also confided the
responsibility of choosing a wife for the young king. He acquitted
himself wonderfully well of this duty, for the princess whom Wendelin
XVI. espoused on his twentieth birthday, was the daughter of a powerful
king, and so beautiful that it seemed as if the good God must have made
a new mould in which to form her. No more regular features were to be
seen in any collection of wax figures; the princess also possessed the
art of keeping her face perfectly unmoved. 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 f