lieve you are repeating my own words!"

"Sire, this will show you that my conduct is not always disrespectful,
but that I set so high a value on your royal words that they are
immediately engraved upon my memory," said Baron von Stein, smiling.
"But, inasmuch as I am also of your majesty's opinion that such
officials as you have described me to be are most injurious to the
interests of the monarchy, I must request your majesty to accept my
declination, and I hope it will be granted immediately."

"You have pronounced your own sentence, and I do not know how to add any
thing to it!" replied the king.

Baron von Stein bowed. "I thank your majesty most humbly," he said. "Now
I must beg that my dismissal from the service be communicated to me in
the usual form. I have the honor to take leave of your majesty."

Without waiting for the king's reply, the baron bowed a second time, and
left the room with measured steps. He crossed the anteroom rapidly, and
then entered the apartment contiguous to the hall. A royal _valet de
chambre_ hastened to meet him. "Your excellency," he said, "the queen
begs you to be so kind as to go immediately to her. She instructed me to
wait here till your return from the king, and ordered me to announce
you directly to her majesty."

"Announce me, then," said Baron von Stein, following the footman with a
mournful air.

The queen was in her cabinet, and rose from her divan when Baron von
Stein entered. She offered her hand to the minister with a smile. "I
begged you to come to me," she said, "because I intended to be the first
to wish you--nay, ourselves--joy of your new position. The king has
informed me that he would intrust the office of Count von Haugwitz to
you, and I tell you truly that this is as a beam of light for me in the
gloom of our present circumstances. I know that you are a true and
faithful patriot; that you have the welfare of Prussia, of Germany, and
of our dynasty at heart, and that you have the will and the ability to
help us all--this is the reason why I wish ourselves joy of--"

"Pardon me, your majesty, for daring to interrupt you," said. Baron von
Stein, in a low, melancholy voice; "but I cannot accept your
congratulations. I was not appointed minister of foreign affairs, but
the king has just granted my request to be dismissed from the service."

The queen started, and turned pale. "You did not accept the position
which the king offered to you?" she asked. "Oh, then