"These are disconsolate words to fall from YOUR lips, sire. To you life must present a bright array of hopes and useful deeds. None but an old and decrepit man should take such gloomy views of the world."
"I have suffered as much as older men, Lacy," returned the emperor, laying his hand upon his friend's shoulder "But all my sufferings are forgotten in the anticipated joy of the morrow. Let the dead past bury its dead the birth of my happiness is at hand. I shall no mote rest my title to the world's homage upon the station to which I was born. It shall know at last that I am worthy to be the friend of Lacy and of Loudon. All the years that have intervened have never yet sufficed to blot out the remembrance of that fearful day on which the empress recalled the consent she had given for me to meet Frederick in the field. I have never looked upon my mother since without feeling the wound reopen. But to-day I can forgive her. I can even forgive the hated priests who were the cause of my misfortune. Lacy, I love the whole world. I—"
The emperor interrupted himself to stare with astonishment at the figure of a man, who just then had opened the door.
"The Grand Duke of Tuscany!" exclaimed Lacy.
"My brother Leopold," murmured Joseph, in a low, tremulous voice, but without rising from his seat, or offering his hand. A cloud passed over the pale, sickly face of the grand duke, and the smile vanished from his lips.
"Your majesty does not invite me to enter?" asked he, reproachfully.
"You do not bid me welcome?"
The emperor gazed upon his brother in silence, and Leopold shrank from the keen and searching glances of Joseph's inquiring eyes.
"My brother," cried the emperor, suddenly, "you have come hither to bring me some evil tidings."
"I have come to greet your majesty, and to enjoy a few hours of family intercourse with you," replied the grand duke, while, without awaiting the courtesy which Joseph would not extend, be closed the door, and advanced into the room.
"No, no," cried the emperor, "that is false. We are not such a pair of loving brothers that you should seek me for affection's sake."