nd give him
the books and papers my husband has ordered."

Wilhelmina passed on proudly, calmly, with a smile on her lips, but no
one knew what it cost her poor heart. She did not look back. Kalkreuth
would have given years to take leave once more of the lovely face, to
ask pardon for the hard, rude words he had dared to say. The princess
had still the bashful timidity of virtue; after the confession she
had made she dared not look upon him. The count controlled himself; he
followed Saldow. He was bewildered, rapturously giddy. As he left the
castle and entered his carriage he looked up at the window and said: "I
will not die!--I will return!"--then pressed the bouquet to his lips and
sank back in the carriage.

CHAPTER VIII. THE NUTSHELLS BEHIND THE FAUTEUIL OF THE QUEEN.

Princess Wilhelmina, as we have said, did not look back; she stepped
silently through the ball-room, and approached the Princess Amelia. She
stood for a moment behind a couple who were dancing the Francaise. The
French officers had just taught this dance to the Prussian ladies as the
newest Parisian mode.

It was a graceful and coquettish dance, approaching and avoiding; the
ladies stood opposite their cavaliers, and advanced with smiling grace,
then appeared to fly from them in mocking haste. They were pursued in
artistic tours by their cavaliers; at the end of the dance their hands
were clasped in each other's, and they danced through the room with the
graceful time and step of the minuet.

Princess Wilhelmina stood silent and unobservant; she knew not the dance
was ended; she knew not that the music was silenced. A softer, sweeter,
dearer melody sounded in her ears; she heard the echo of that voice
which had spoken scornfully, despairingly, and yet love had been the
sweet theme.

The sudden stillness waked her from her dream and she stepped forward.
The general silence was interrupted by the well-known coarse, stern
voice of the Princess Amelia.

"Does this dance please you, Baron Marshal? The French officers have
taught it to our ladies as a return for the dance which our brave
Prussian soldiers taught the French at Rossbach; at Rossbach, however,
they danced to a quicker, faster tempo. These Frenchmen are now calling
out, 'En avant!' but at Rossbach, I am told, 'En arriere!' was the word
of command."

A death-like silence followed these sarcastic words of the princess,
and throughout the room her mocking, derisive laugh which f