So she grew from childhood into girlhood, and at thirteen was as
bold and fearless, as wilful and self-possessed as any young
fellow of twenty-one. But besides all this she was a wonderful
scholar; indeed, she would be accounted remarkable even in these
days of bright girl-graduates. At thirteen she was a thorough
Greek scholar; she was learned in mathematics and astronomy, the
classics, history, and philosophy; and she acquired of her own
accord German, Italian, Spanish, and French.
Altogether, this girl Queen of the North was as strange a
compound of scholar and hoyden, pride and carelessness, ambition
and indifference, culture and rudeness, as ever, before her time
or since, were combined in the nature of a girl of thirteen. And
it is thus that our story finds her.
One raw October morning in the year 1639, there was stir and
excitement at the palace in Stockholm. A courier had arrived
bearing important dispatches to the Council of Regents which
governed Sweden during the minority of the Queen, and there was
no one to officially meet him.
Closely following the lackey who received him, the courier strode
into the council-room of the palace.
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