oxicating night of the ball supplied it. The "little dove" had found
a secure nesting-place in his heart. She must be his at any cost. She
and her mother alone, of all the guests, were invited to spend the rest
of the night at the castle as the Prince's guests; and when he parted
from her the following day, it was with vows on his part of undying love
and fidelity, and a promise on hers to come to him at Upsala as soon as
a suitable home could be found for her.

Thus easily was the dove caught in the toils of one of the most amorous
Princes of Europe; but it must be said for her that her heart went with
the surrender of her freedom, for the Prince, with his ardent passion,
his strength and his magnetism, had swept her as quickly off her feet as
she had made a quick conquest of him.

Thus, before many weeks had passed, we find Dyveke installed with her
mother in a sumptuous home in the outskirts of Upsala, queening it in
the Prince's Court, and every day forging new fetters to bind him to
her. And while Dyveke thus ruled over Christian's heart, her
strong-minded mother soon established a similar empire over his mind.
With the clever, masterful brain of a man, the Amazon of the
market-place developed such a capacity for intrigue, such a grasp of
statesmanship and such arts of diplomacy that Christian, strong man as
he thought himself, soon became little more than a puppet in her hands,
taking her counsel and deferring to her judgment in preference to those
of his ministers. The fruit-seller thus found herself virtual Prime
Minister, while her daughter reigned, an uncrowned Queen.

When the Prince was summoned to Copenhagen by his father's failing
health, Frau Sigbrit and her daughter accompanied him, one in her way as
indispensable as the other; and when King James died and Christian
reigned in his stead, the women of the Bergen market were installed in a
splendid suite of apartments in his palace. So hopeless was his
subjection to both that his subjects, with an indifferent shrug of the
shoulders, accepted them as inevitable.

For a time, it is true, their supremacy was in danger. Now that
Christian was King, it became important to provide him with a Queen, and
a suitable consort was found for him in the Austrian Princess, Isabella,
sister of the Emperor Charles V., a well-gilded bride, distinguished
alike for her beauty and her piety. Isabella, however, was one of the
last women to tolerate any rivalry in her husband