skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."

"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to
begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst
from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly
thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she
know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog.
She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a
hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"

The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not
in Sweden--nor probably in Denmark either--and the cunning old
minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on
the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually
touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of
the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little
goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion
on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I
believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a
good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if
you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an
infinite obligation on both of us."

Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table
from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful
couple, with the men all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at
the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his
utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of
(mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several
sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think,
could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game
of chess--an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast
as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the
contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and
threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto
vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.

"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair
fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and
implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your
toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat
you?" she sai