"Well, has it come?"
Again Mother Pricker sighed, shook her head, and answered—
"Not yet!"
M. Pricker asked nothing, demanded nothing; silent and proud he sat in the midst of his family circle; stoically listened to the ringing of the bell, and saw strangers enter his counting-room, too proud to show any excitement. He wrapped himself in an Olympian silence, and barricaded himself from the curious questions of his children by the stern reserve of parental authority.
"I see that he suffers," said his wife to her daughter Anna; "I see that he looks paler every day, and eats less and less; if this painful anxiety endures much longer, the poor man will become dangerously ill, and the king will be answerable for the death of one of his noblest and best subjects."
"But why does our father attach such importance to this small affair?" said Anna, with a lofty shrug of her shoulders.
Mother Pricker looked at her with astonishment.
"You call this a small affair, which concerns not only the honor of your father, but that of your whole family; which affects the position and calling enjoyed by the Pricker family for a hundred years? It is a question whether your father shall be unjustly deprived of his honorable place, or have justice done him, and his great services acknowledged!"
Anna gave a hearty laugh.
"Dear mother, you look at this thing too tragically; you are making a camel of a gnat. The great and exalted things of which you speak have nothing to do with the matter; it is a simple question of title. The great point is, will our father receive the title of 'court tailor' to the reigning queen, or be only the tailor of the queen-dowager. It seems to me the difference is very small, and I cannot imagine why so much importance is attached to it."