hank you, my own dear friend?" She encircled the king's neck
with her arms, with passionate tenderness, and pressed a long kiss on
his lips. "Dear, dear husband, how shall I thank you?" she whispered,
once more with tearful eyes.

The king looked at her long and lovingly. "That you are with me is my
greatest happiness. I was thinking to-day of a poem written by good old
Claudius; it expresses my own feelings. It is an echo of my heart's
gratitude!"

"What poem is it?" asked the queen.

Frederick William laid his hand on her head, raised his eyes toward
heaven, and said aloud:

"Ich danke dir mein Wohl, mein Glueck in diesem Leben,
Ich war wohl klug, dass ich dich fand;
Doch ich fand nicht, Gott hat dich mir gegeben,
So segnet keines Menschen Hand!"[54]

[Footnote 54:

"On thee my joy, my hopes rely!
How wise to win thee mine!
But surely it was Heaven--not I,
That made me ever thine.

To thee, my loving spouse, I owe
Whate'er of good may be,
Nor could a human hand bestow
This priceless gift on me."

CHAPTER LVII.

LOUISA'S DEATH.

The happy and long-yearned-for day, the 25th of June, had dawned at
last. The queen's wish was to be fulfilled; she was to set out for her
old Mecklenburg home, for her paternal roof at Neustrelitz. The king
intended to follow her thither in a few days, for he was detained in
Berlin by state affairs; they were then to go with her family to the
ducal country-seat of Hohenzieritz, and thence to return to Berlin.

How had the queen longed for this day! how joyously had she awaited the
moment when she was to see her old home again! Even her separation from
her beloved children, from her husband, did not shade her beautiful
countenance. She was to miss her children but for a short time, and her
husband was to join her at the earliest moment; she could therefore
yield to the joy with which the prospect of seeing her father and his
family, and of returning to her old home, filled her heart.

Home! The carriage rolled from the palace-gate of Charlottenburg, and
the green fields as she passed had never seemed so beautiful. But her
eyes were often turned to the sky, and she gazed on the white clouds
floating over it as swans on an azure lake. "Precede me, clouds! inform
my father and my brothers that I am coming!" she exclaimed, smiling.
"Oh, why does not my soul unfold its wings, and carry me home through
the air? T