h was like the rush of cavalry; the sound of
shattering lamps tingled above the rest; and, over-towering all, she
heard her own name bandied among the shouters. A bugle sounded at the
door of the guard-room; one gun was fired; and then, with the yell of
hundreds, Mittwalden Palace was carried at a rush.

Sped by these dire sounds and voices, the Princess scaled the long
garden, skimming like a bird the star-lit stairways; crossed the park,
which was in that place narrow; and plunged upon the farther side into
the rude shelter of the forest. So, at a bound, she left the discretion
and the cheerful lamps of palace evenings; ceased utterly to be a
sovereign lady; and, falling from the whole height of civilisation, ran
forth into the woods, a ragged Cinderella.

She went direct before her through an open tract of the forest, full of
brush and birches, and where the starlight guided her; and, beyond that
again, must thread the columned blackness of a pine grove joining
overhead the thatch of its long branches. At that hour the place was
breathless; a horror of night like a presence occupied that dungeon of
the wood; and she went groping, knocking against the boles--her ear,
betweenwhiles, strained to aching and yet unrewarded.

But the slope of the ground was upward, and encouraged her; and
presently she issued on a rocky hill that stood forth above the sea of
forest. All around were other hill-tops, big and little; sable vales of
forest between; overhead the open heaven and the brilliancy of countless
stars; and along the western sky the dim forms of mountains. The glory
of the great night laid hold upon her; her eyes shone with stars; she
dipped her sight into the coolness and brightness of the sky, as she
might have dipped her wrist into a spring; and her heart, at that
ethereal shock, began to move more soberly. The sun that sails overhead,
ploughing into gold the fields of daylight azure and uttering the signal
to man's myriads, has no word apart for man the individual; and the
moon, like a violin, only praises and laments our private destiny. The
stars alone, cheerful whisperers, confer quietly with each of us like
friends; they give ear to our sorrows smilingly, like wise old men, rich
in tolerance; and by their double scale, so small to the eye, so vast to
the imagination, they keep before the mind the double character of man's
nature and fate.

There sat the Princess, beautifully looking upon beauty, in council w