te the connections which unite us!

"I conclude by very tenderly thanking your royal highness for all the
cares and all the troubles you have given yourself; and I beseech you
to be assured that my gratitude, my friendship, my esteem, and the
high consideration which I have for you, will terminate only with my
life.

"Catharine."

The Grand Duke Paul was received in Berlin with all the honors due his
rank as heir to the imperial throne of Russia. The great Frederic even
came to the door of his apartment to greet his guest. The grand duke
was escorted into the city with much pomp. Thirty-four trumpeters,
winding their bugles, preceded him, all in rich uniform. Then came a
strong array of soldiers. These were followed by a civic procession,
in brilliant decorations. Three superb state coaches, containing the
dignitaries of Berlin, came next in the train, followed by a
detachment of the life-guards, who preceded the magnificent chariot of
the duke, which chariot was regarded as the most superb which had then
ever been seen, and which was drawn by eight of the finest horses
Prussia could produce. This carriage conveyed Paul and Prince Henry. A
hundred dragoons, as a guard of honor, closed the procession. At the
gates of the city the magistracy received Paul beneath a triumphal
arch, where seventy beautiful girls, dressed like nymphs and
shepherdesses, presented the grand duke with complimentary verses, and
crowned him with a garland of flowers. The ringing of bells, the
pealing of cannon, strains of martial music, and the acclamations of
the multitude, greeted Paul from the time he entered the gates until
he reached the royal palace.

"Sire," exclaimed Paul, as he took the hand of the King of Prussia,
"the motives which bring me from the extremities of the North to these
happy dominions, are the desire of assuring your majesty of the
friendship and alliance to subsist henceforth and for ever between
Russia and Prussia, and the eagerness to see a princess destined to
ascend the throne of the Russian empire. By my receiving her at your
hands, I assure you that she will be more dear to myself and to the
nation over which she is to reign. It has also been one of the most
ardent aspirations of my soul to contemplate the greatest of heroes,
the admiration of our age and the astonishment of posterity."

Here the king interrupted him, replying,

"Instead of which, you behold a hoary-headed valitudinarian, who could
never ha