“Where are the children?” asked the king, of the servant who rushed forward to answer his summons.
“Your majesty, my young master and mistress are in the dining-room.”
“Send them to me immediately,” said the king; and he remained standing at the door awaiting them. When they came running into the parlor with anxious, inquiring looks, the king took them by the hand and conducted them to their mother.
“Madame,” said he, gravely, “I have the honor to introduce to you Countess Mariane and Count Alexander von der Mark.”
“Count Alexander von der Mark?” repeated the boy, looking up wonderingly at his father. “Who is that?”
“That you are, my son,” said the king, as he stooped down and raised the boy up in his arms. “You are the Count von der Mark, and your sister is the countess; and you shall have the Prussian eagle in your coat of arms, and shall be honored at my court as my dear, handsome son. All the proud courtiers shall bow their heads before you and your sister. The Count and Countess von der Mark shall have the precedence at my court over all the noble families; and their place shall immediately be behind the royal princesses.”
“And that will be my dear mamma’s place, too?” said Alexander. “She will always be where we are?”
“Yes,” said the king hastily, “she will always remain with her dear children. Yes, and (as the young count once remarked that, if he could live in a splendid house ‘under the Linden-trees’[26] with his mother, and if I would go to see them right often, he would have all he desired), I will make him a present of the most magnificent house ‘under the Linden-trees’ in Berlin, and the young count shall live there, and I will visit him right often in his new home.”
“That will be splendid,” cried the boy clapping his hands. “You are delighted, too, are you not, Mariane?”