"Well, little one," said the Court Chaplain, "it is a strange system of education, but I am far from saying that it is a bad one. Nevertheless it will not last. The Herr Rector has his eye upon thee, and will send thee back to thy tailoring very soon."
The tears came into the little schoolmaster's eyes, and he turned very pale.
"Well, do not be sad," said the Chaplain. "I have been thinking and working for thee. Thou hast heard of the Prince, though thou hast, I think, never seen the pleasure palace, Joyeuse, though it is so near."
"I have seen the iron gates with the golden scrolls," said the boy. "They are like the heavenly Jerusalem; every several gate is one pearl."
The Chaplain did not notice the confused metaphor of this description.
"Well," he said, "I have been speaking to the Prince of thee. Thou knowest nothing of these things, but the Prince has lived for many years in Italy, a country where they do nothing but sing and dance. He has come back, as thou knowest, and has married a wife, according to the traditions of his race. Since he came back to Germany he has taken a fancy to this forest-lodge, for at first it was little more, and has garnished it and enlarged it according to his southern fancies; that is why he likes it better than his princely cities. He has two children—a boy and a girl—eight and nine, or thereabouts. The Princess is not a good woman. She neglects her children, and she prefers the princely cities to her husband, to her little ones, and to the beautiful forests and hills."
The little schoolmaster listened with open eyes. Then he said, beneath his breath:
"How Satanic that must be!"
"The Prince," continued the Court Chaplain, "is a beautiful soul 'manqué,' which means spoilt. His sister, the Princess Isoline von Isenberg-Wertheim, is such a soul. She has joined herself to a company of pious people who have taken an old manor-house belonging to the Prince on the farther side of the palace gardens, where they devote themselves to prayer, to good works, and to the manufacture of half-silk stuffs, by which they maintain themselves and give to the poor. The Prince himself knows something of such feelings. He indeed knows the way of piety, though he does not follow it. He acknowledges the grace of refinement which piety gives, even to the most highly bred. He is particularly desirous that his children should possess this supreme touch. Something that I told him of thee pleased his fancy. Thy strange way of keeping school seemed to him very new; more especially was he delighted with that infancy story of thee and old Father Stalher. The old man, I told the Prince, came into thy father's for his new coat and found thee reading. Reading, in any one, seemed to Father Stalher little short of miraculous; but in a child of eight it was more—it was elfish.
"'What are you doing there, child?' said Father Stalher.