Both received equal care and were never left alone.  The older brother found this but natural, and he liked to lie still, and be fanned, or have the flies brushed away from him, and to have some one read fairy stories, which he loved, aloud to him until he dozed off to sleep.  It was astonishing how long and how soundly he could sleep.  The courtiers said that he was laying up a store of strength, to meet the demands that would be made upon him when he came to the throne.

Even before he could speak plainly, he had learned to let others wait upon him, and would never lift his little finger to do anything for himself.  His passive face and large melancholy eyes were wonderfully beautiful, and inspired even his mother with a feeling of awe and respect.  She never had cause to feel anxious about him, for there was no better, nor more obedient child in the whole land.

The ill-omened boy, George, was the exact opposite of his brother.  He, on the contrary, had to be watched and tended, for his veins seemed to run quicksilver.  One would have been justified in saying that he went out to meet the misfortune which was so surely awaiting him.  Whenever it was possible he gave his nurses and attendants the slip.  He planned dangerous games, and incited the children of the castle servants and gardeners to carry out the mischief which he had contrived.

But his favorite pastime was building.  Sometimes he would erect houses of red stone, often he would dig great caves of many chambers and halls in the sand.  At this work he was much more energetic than his humbler playfellows, and he would be dirty and dripping with perspiration when he returned to the castle.  The courtiers would shake their heads over him in disapprobation, and then look approvingly at Wendelin, who was a true royal child and never got his white hands dirty.

There was no doubt but that George was cast in a less aristocratic mould than his brother.  When Wendelin complained of the heat, George would spring into the lake for a swim, and when Wendelin was freezing, George would praise the fresh bracing air.  The duchess often sighed for a thousand eyes that she might the better look after him, and she constantly had to scold and reprove him, whereas her other son never heard anything but soft words from her.  But then George would fly into her arms in a most unprincely manner, and she would kiss him and hug him, as if she never wanted to let him go, while her caresses of her elder son were restricted to a kiss on his forehead, or to stroking his hair.  George was by no means so beautiful as his brother; he had only a fresh boyish face, but his eyes were exceptionally deep and truthful, and his mother always found in them a perfect reflection of what was in her own heart.