When the Electoral Prince awoke the next morning after a long, refreshing slumber, his first glance fell upon his faithful old valet, who stood at the foot of his couch, his face actually beaming with joy.

“Why, Dietrich,” said Frederick William, “you look so happy! What has altered your old face so since yesterday?”

“The sight of you, most gracious sir, for your face has altered, too. Your cheeks are no longer deadly pale, nor your features distorted. Your highness looks quite like a well man now; somewhat pale, it is true; but your lips are again red and your eyes bright. Ah, gracious sir, the dear White Lady kept her word, she saved you!”

“God bless her!” said the Electoral Prince solemnly. “But hark! old man, tell nobody that I have been saved. You must not use such dangerous words, not even think them. There was no need to save me, for I have been exposed to no peril. I have not been sick at all, but only overcome by wine, and, to speak plainly, drunk do you hear, old man? I have been drunk two whole days: such is the account you must give of my attack.”

“I shall do so, your highness, since you order it; but it is a sin and a shame that I should slander my own dear young master, who is such a sober, steady Prince.”

“Now, Dietrich,” said the Electoral Prince, with a melancholy smile, “you give me more praise than I deserve. I was not quite so sober in Holland.”

“No, sir; in dear, blessed Holland, life was a different thing. It was like heaven there, and when I looked at your grace I always felt as if I saw before me Saint George himself, so bold, spirited, and happy you ever seemed.”

“And so I felt, too,” said the Prince softly to himself. “But all that is past now. All! The costly intoxication of happiness is at an end, and I am sobered. Yes, yes,” he continued aloud, springing with energy from his couch, “you are quite right, old Dietrich. Now help this sober, steady Prince to dress himself, that he may wait upon the Elector and Electress and announce his recovery to them.”

After the Electoral Prince had made his toilet, he repaired to the Electoral apartments to pay his respects. George William received his son with sullen peevishness of manner, hardly deigning to bestow upon him more than a single glance of indifference.

“Why, you still look pale and weak,” he said coolly. “It is no great honor for a Prince to be overcome by a couple of glasses of wine, and to succumb as if he had been struck by a cannon ball.”

“Most gracious sir,” replied Frederick William, smiling, “I hope yet to be able to prove to your highness that I can stand against the fire of cannon balls better than Count Schwarzenberg’s wine, and that I can go to meet a battery of artillery more bravely than a battery of bottles.”

“I hope it will not be in your power to prove any such thing, sir,” cried the Elector impatiently. “I want to hear nothing about war, and you must banish all thoughts of war and heroic deeds from your mind, and become a peaceful, law-abiding citizen. Your head has been turned in Holland, but I rather expect to set it right again! We are going back to Prussia, and you will accompany us. Go now to the Electress, and disturb me no longer in my work.”

Frederick William bowed in silence and repaired to his mother’s apartments. The Electress received him with open arms, and pressed him to her heart.

“I have you again, my son, I have you again,” she cried with warmth. “A merciful God has not been willing to deprive me of my only happiness; he has preserved you to me. Oh, my son, I love you so much, and I feel, moreover, that you love me, and that we shall understand each other, and that all causes of disagreement will disappear so soon as that hateful, dreaded man no longer stands between us he, who is your enemy as well as mine. We are going back to Prussia, and my heart is full of joy, hope, and happiness. There I shall have you safe; there you are mine, and no murderer or enemy there threatens my beloved only son!”

“But, most revered mother, there the worst, most dangerous enemy of all threatens me.”

“Who is he? What is his name?”

“Idleness, your highness. I shall be condemned there to an inactive, useless existence. I shall have nothing to do but to live. O most gracious mother! intercede for me with my father and Count Schwarzenberg, that I may be appointed Stadtholder of Cleves, for there I would have something to do, there I could be useful, and they wish for my presence there.”

“You do not wish to stay with me, then?” asked his mother, in a tone of mortification. “You already wish yourself away from me and your sisters?”

The Prince’s countenance, which had been just aglow with enthusiasm, having for the moment dropped its mask, now once more assumed its serious, tranquil expression, and again the mask was drawn over its features.

“I by no means long to be away from you,” he said quietly, “but I shall delight in accompanying you to Prussia.”

“That is what I call spoken like a good, obedient child,” cried the Electress, “and, Louise, I advise you to profit by such an example. Just look at your sister, Frederick, only see what a sorrowful figure she presents. She does not even come to welcome her brother, but sits there quite disconsolate with tears in her eyes.”

“No, dearest mother, I am not crying,” replied the Princess gently. “I, too, am right glad that we are to return to Prussia.”

“That is not true, mamma,” exclaimed Princess Hedwig Sophie; “she is not glad at all. On the contrary, she cried and lamented all last night, thinking that I was asleep and knew nothing about it. But I heard everything. I know that she would rather stay here, and that she finds it charming here all of a sudden, although she used to think it so dull. But Louise has entirely changed these last four days, and since he has been here she finds tiresome old Berlin a splendid place, and

“But, Hedwig,” interrupted her sister, whose cheeks were suffused with a crimson flush, “what are you talking about, and how can you chatter such nonsense?”

“It is true, she talks nonsense,” said the Electress severely; “yet I should like to know what her words signify. Who is he who has so transformed tiresome Berlin in your sister’s eyes?”

“Why, you do not know, mamma?” asked the mischievous child, smiling and putting on a look of astonishment.

“You do not know who loves our Louise so ardently, so passionately? You do not know the man for whose sake she would leave father and mother? You do not know the only man whom the Princess Charlotte Louise loves?”

“I do not know, but I command you to tell me!” said the Electress dryly.

“Well,” said the Princess, smilingly surveying the group, “it is our dear, only brother it is Frederick William.”

“You are a little blockhead!” exclaimed the Electress, shrugging her shoulders and smiling.

“You are a dear little rogue,” said Frederick William, tenderly embracing his willful sister. She playfully broke away from him, dancing through the hall, and challenging her brother to pursue and overtake her. Princess Louise said not a word, but the blush upon her cheeks died away, and the expression of horror and alarm vanished from her features.

Still Princess Hedwig Sophie kept up her frolic, and as often as the Prince thought he had caught her she flew off again like a butterfly. Finally, at the extreme end of the hall, he held her fast, and now, laughingly and tenderly, she flung her arms about his neck, and whispered softly: “Expect me this evening in your room at nine o’clock. I have something important to tell you. Silence!”

Again she let him go, and continued to hop about, laughing merrily and cheerfully as a child.

And in the evening, when the clock in the great corridor had just struck the ninth hour, the Princess Hedwig Sophie slipped unperceived into the room of her brother, who already held the door open for her and awaited her coming.

“Look, here you are, my princess of the fairies,” said he, smiling. “What is there now on hand, and what playful scheme are you revolving in your mind to-day?”

But the countenance of the Princess exhibited no signs of playfulness. It was pale, and her whole being seemed under the influence of violent excitement.

“Frederick,” she said hurriedly, “I have a dreadful secret to confide to you. Our sister Louise loves Count Adolphus Schwarzenberg.”

“I thought as much,” murmured the Prince.

“I have known it for a long while,” continued the Princess, “but I took no notice of it, hoping that absence and separation would make her forget him. But since his return I have had no more hope. Last night, in her distress, she betrayed all to me, and I must tell you something dreadful, something shocking. You must reveal it to nobody not another one must know it. Do you promise me that?”

“I promise, Hedwig. But tell me what it is.”

She bent over close to his ear and whispered:

“She has granted him a rendezvous.”

“Impossible, sister, you are mistaken!”

“No, no, Frederick, I am not mistaken. I heard her myself when she told him so. It was in Count Schwarzenberg’s hothouse; I came behind her with the ladies, and she thought I was paying no attention whatever to her and all that she was saying to Count Adolphus. But I managed to watch her constantly without attracting the attention of the ladies I was with. My eyes and ears are very sharp, and I saw her press a note into his hand, and heard her repeat to him the contents of the note, appointing an interview with him this evening at ten o’clock. Old Trude is to wait for him at the back side door of the castle next to the cathedral, and she is to conduct him to her. You must not suffer it, Frederick William; that bad Count Schwarzenberg shall not carry off my sister.”

“No, that he shall not,” said the Prince. “I thank you, sister, for coming to me. We two shall save her we two alone, and nobody shall know anything about it. Even she herself must not find out that we know her secret. We must be brisk and determined, though, for it is late, only wanting a half hour of being ten o’clock. Who is old Trude?”

“Louise’s chambermaid, who has been with her all her life, for Trude was her nurse. She idolizes our sister, and would go through fire and water for her sake. What Louise commands is law with her.”

“Then we must prevent old Trude, by force or cunning, from going to the door and admitting the count.”

“By force, impossible, for that would make a noise; but by cunning. I have it, Frederick, I have it! I will entice old Trude into my room and then lock myself in with her, playing all sorts of tricks, and seeming to have no object at all in view but amusement and teasing. I will take care of old Trude.”

“And I of Count Schwarzenberg. It is high time, sister! Make haste, lest old Trude escape you. But hark! It will be necessary for you to speak to the old woman, besides. You must threaten her with revealing the whole affair to our father if she does not do as you command, and tell our sister that she waited for the count a whole hour in vain.”

“You are right, Frederick. That is still better. Louise must believe that he did not come. To work! to work!”

The Princess sprang away with the fleetness of a gazelle, and the Prince was left alone.

“I wish I could go to meet him sword in hand,” he muttered between his clinched teeth. “I understand their game. They would have poisoned me and carried off my sister, so that she would have been forced to marry him, and then by means of the Emperor she would have been declared heiress of the Electoral Mark of Brandenburg. Ah! I penetrate their designs, and they shall not succeed. Their poison proved inefficacious, and so shall their love! Now away to the door through which the fine gallant was to have entered. He will find it locked, and I shall keep guard before it the livelong night.”

The Prince left his own apartments, and hurried down a private staircase and through dark passages to the door designated. It was only on latch, but a key was in the lock. Quickly he locked the door, and then stood listening intently. It struck ten o’clock, and as the last stroke vibrated in his ear a hand was laid upon the door latch outside, and a manly voice whispered: “Trude, open! It is I. The one whom you expect! Open, quick!”

“Were it hell,” murmured the Prince softly to himself, “yes, were it hell, I would open the door. But there is no admittance to paradise for you. Knock on, knock on! The gates of the Electoral mansion are not undone for you. Knock on; the castle of the Elector of Brandenburg is locked against you, and you must stand without, you Counts of Schwarzenberg, for you shall not thrust me out of the palace of my fathers! I shall be Elector of Brandenburg in spite of you, and then, Count Schwarzenberg, Stadtholder in the Mark, then be on your guard! I shall remember, Count Adolphus Schwarzenberg, that your finger rapped at this door, threatening to bring shame and disgrace upon this house! And then, perhaps, I may open a door for you, and allow you to enter, but it will not be for a lover’s rendezvous, and the door which admits you will not so easily grant you an escape. Now I suffer and endure, but a time of reckoning will come! Schwarzenbergs, beware of me!”

For a long while yet the Electoral Prince stood within the door, and for a long while yet, at intervals, the knocking on the outside was repeated. Then all was still. Frederick William returned to his own apartments.

Early next morning took place the departure of the Electoral family for Prussia. It was to be wholly without formality, and consequently no one had been notified. The Elector had only caused the two Counts Schwarzenberg to be summoned after the carriages were ready, and when they came in haste they found the Electoral family just on the point of entering their several équipages.

“I meant to set out secretly,” said George William, stretching out both hands to the Stadtholder, “in order to spare myself the pain of bidding you farewell, Adam. But now I find that my heart is stronger than my will, and I must embrace you once more before I go!”

While the Elector embraced his favorite and received from him assurances of perpetual fidelity, Count Adolphus Schwarzenberg approached the Princess Charlotte Louise, who stood silent and apart in a window recess, looking out upon the street with pallid countenance and eyes reddened by weeping.

“Louise,” he whispered softly, “Louise, you

But before he could utter another word, Princess Hedwig stood beside him, addressing him with amiable speech, and the Electoral Prince approached his sister and offered her his arm to conduct her to the carriage. She walked along, leaning on her brother’s arm, without once lifting her eyes from the ground, deeply humiliated by the thought that her lover had caused her to wait for him in vain. A quarter of an hour later the two clumsy vehicles containing the Electoral family rolled out of the castle gate and struck into the road leading to Koenigsberg. The White Lady had driven away the Elector George William, and he was nevermore to behold the palace of his fathers.

The White Lady had saved Prince Frederick William, and as he now drove through the gates of Berlin in that clumsy old coach he said to himself, with joyful anticipation: “I shall see you again, Berlin! I shall see you again, dear town of my fathers! I shall come back, and, please God, not humbly and enslaved as I go away to-day, but as a Prince, who is lord within his own domains, with God in his heart, a clear sky overhead, and no Schwarzenbergs upon the horizon!”

Wearily and panting for breath the poor horses dragged the heavy carriage through the sands of the Mark, but within sat the Electoral Prince within sat Cæsar and his fortunes.