She took the two youngest children, Albert, not yet three years, and Louisa, one year old, in her arms; the five other children walking by her side, and thus, in the midst of these "seven stars," she approached her father. Bending her knee before him, she exclaimed: "Grandfather! here are your grandchildren; here is your daughter, who, with her children, asks for your blessing, and here is the most faithful and beloved man, my husband! Oh, father, honor him, for he has preserved to your daughter her happiness!" She placed the two youngest ones at the feet of the duke, and took the king's hand, which she pressed to her bosom.
The king, who was afraid lest this excitement should become injurious to the feeble health of his wife, after saluting the duke and his own sisters in a cordial manner, proposed an inspection of the rooms of their so long deserted house.
"Yes!" exclaimed Louisa, "let us show my beloved father the temple of our happiness; and the good spirits around us no doubt welcome him and us. Come!" Walking between her father and her husband, and followed by the princesses and her oldest sons, the queen hastened through the suite of rooms, hallowed by the remembrances of other days, and which now seemed to her as beautiful as the halls of a fairy-palace. "How tasteful, how brilliant!" exclaimed Louisa. "Formerly, the magnificence of these rooms did not strike me at all; but now I am able to perceive and appreciate it. Our houses at Memel and Königsberg were much plainer, and I thought of the beauty of our residence at Berlin.—Ah, and there is my piano! Oh, how often have I longed for it! Will you grant me a favor, my king and husband?"
"The queen is in her own rooms; she has to ask no favors here, but only to command," said the king.
"You will then permit me to salute the good spirits of our house with music, and to sing a hymn of welcome to them?" asked the queen.
The king smilingly nodded, and Louisa, hastening to the piano, quickly took off her gloves, and sat down on a chair in front of the instrument. Her fingers swept over the keys in many brilliant cadences. Her face was cheerful, but gradually she became grave, and, turning her large eyes toward heaven, her concords were slow and solemn. She thought of the past—of the day when, seized with forebodings, she sang here a hymn which she repeated at the peasant's cottage during her flight to Königsberg, when her presentiments were fulfilled. Her hands played almost spontaneously that simple and beautiful air, and again she sang with emotion:
"Who never ate his bread with tears,
Who never in the sorrowing hours
Of night, lay sunk in gloomy fears,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers!"[49]