at. Have I not been up since the
middle of the night, for that reason?"

But she said no more, and was a trifle more agreeable during the
remainder of the meal. She was just a bit uneasy before Hedwig those
days. She did not like the look in her eyes.

That afternoon, attired in his uniform of the Guards, the Crown Prince
received the delegation of citizens in the great audience, chamber of
the Palace, a solitary little figure, standing on the red carpet before
the dais at the end. Behind him, stately with velvet hangings, was the
tall gilt chair which some day would be his. Afternoon sunlight, coming
through the long windows along the side, shone on the prisms of the
heavy chandeliers, lighted up the paintings of dead and gone kings of
his line, gleamed in great mirrors and on the polished floor.

On each side of his small figure the Council grouped itself, fat Friese,
rat-faced Marschall, Bayerl, with his soft voice and white cheeks
lighted by hot eyes, and the others. They stood very stiff, in their
white gloves. Behind them were grouped the gentlemen of the Court,
in full dress and decorated with orders. At the door stood the Lord
Chamberlain, very gorgeous in scarlet and gold.

The Chancellor stood near the boy, resplendent in his dress uniform, a
blue ribbon across his shirt front, over which Mathilde had taken hours.
He was the Mettlich of the public eye now, hard of features, impassive,
inflexible.

In ordinary times less state would have been observed, a smaller room,
Mettlich only, or but one or two others, an informal ceremony. But the
Chancellor shrewdly intended to do the delegation all honor, the Palace
to give its best, that the city, in need, might do likewise.

And he had staged the affair well. The Crown Prince, standing alone, so
small, so appealing, against his magnificent background, was a picture
to touch the hardest. Not for nothing had Mettlich studied the people,
read their essential simplicity, their answer to any appeal to the
heart. These men were men of family. Surely no father of a son could see
that lonely child and not offer him loyalty.

With the same wisdom, he had given the boy small instruction, and no
speech of thanks. "Let him say what comes into his head," Mettlich had
reasoned. "It will at least be spontaneous and boyish."

The Crown Prince was somewhat nervous. He blinked rapidly as the
delegation entered and proceeded up the room. However, happening at that
moment to re