ance. "I accept your offer," she
said--"may a time come when I shall be able to thank my faithful friends
for the attachment and devotion they manifest toward me during
affliction, and which are engraven in diamond letters on my heart! But
let us thank the good woman who received us so hospitably last night. I
request you to give this to her in my name." She handed her purse filled
with gold-pieces to the high-chamberlain, and entered the carriage. M.
von Schladen stood still until the carriage rolled away. Before mounting
he hastened into the house.

Old Katharine and Martha stood in the room, and were looking in silent
astonishment at the neat characters on the pane, the meaning of which
they were unable to decipher. "Oh, sir," exclaimed Katharine, when the
high-chamberlain entered the room, "tell us the meaning of this--what
did the lady write here?"

M. von Schladen stepped to the window. When he had read the lines, his
eyes filled with tears, and profound emotion was depicted in his
features. "Enviable inmates of this humble cottage," he said, "from this
hour it has become a precious monument, and, when better times arrive,
the Germans will make a pilgrimage to this spot to gaze with devout eyes
at this historical relic of the days of adversity. Preserve the window
carefully, for I tell you it is worth more than gold and diamonds."

"Is it really, then, an exorcism which the beautiful fairy has written
there?" asked Katharine, anxiously.

"Yes, those are magic words," replied M. von Schladen, "and they read as
follows:

'Who never ate his bread with tears--
Who never in the sorrowing hours
Of night lay sunk in gloomy fears--
He knows ye not, O heavenly powers!'"[29]

[Footnote 29:

"Wer nie sein Brot mit Thraenen ass,
Wer nie die kummervollen Naechte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht. Ihr himmlischen Maechte."

Goethe.

]

"Ah, she ate her bread with tears to-day. I saw it," murmured Katharine.
"But who is she, and what is her name? Tell us, so that we may pray for
her, sir."

"Her name is Louisa," said M. von Schladen, in a tremulous voice. "At
present she is a poor, afflicted woman, who is fleeing from town to town
from her enemy, and eating her bread with tears, and weeping at night.
But she is still the Queen of Prussia, and will remain so if there be
justice in heaven!"

"The Queen of Prussia!" cried Katharine, hol