"Idleness, your highness. I shall be condemned there to an inactive, useless existence. I shall have nothing to do but to live. O most gracious mother! intercede for me with my father and Count Schwarzenberg, that I may be appointed Stadtholder of Cleves, for there I would have something to do, there I could be useful, and they wish for my presence there."
"You do not wish to stay with me, then?" asked his mother, in a tone of mortification. "You already wish yourself away from me and your sisters?"
The Prince's countenance, which had been just aglow with enthusiasm, having for the moment dropped its mask, now once more assumed its serious, tranquil expression, and again the mask was drawn over its features.
"I by no means long to be away from you," he said quietly, "but I shall delight in accompanying you to Prussia."
"That is what I call spoken like a good, obedient child," cried the Electress, "and, Louise, I advise you to profit by such an example. Just look at your sister, Frederick, only see what a sorrowful figure she presents. She does not even come to welcome her brother, but sits there quite disconsolate with tears in her eyes."
"No, dearest mother, I am not crying," replied the Princess gently. "I, too, am right glad that we are to return to Prussia."
"That is not true, mamma," exclaimed Princess Hedwig Sophie; "she is not glad at all. On the contrary, she cried and lamented all last night, thinking that I was asleep and knew nothing about it. But I heard everything. I know that she would rather stay here, and that she finds it charming here all of a sudden, although she used to think it so dull. But Louise has entirely changed these last four days, and since he has been here she finds tiresome old Berlin a splendid place, and—"
"But, Hedwig," interrupted her sister, whose cheeks were suffused with a crimson flush, "what are you talking about, and how can you chatter such nonsense?"
"It is true, she talks nonsense," said the Electress severely; "yet I should like to know what her words signify. Who is he who has so transformed tiresome Berlin in your sister's eyes?"
"Why, you do not know, mamma?" asked the mischievous child, smiling and putting on a look of astonishment.