er and servant to you or not?"

"Aye to that!" quoth the Prince, heartily.

"Have I ever asked fee or reward for aught I have tried to do?"

"Nay," he said; "but you have gotten some of both without asking."

"Will you grant me the first boon I have asked of you since you became
Prince and Master to Hugo Gottfried?"

"I will grant it, if it be not to separate us as friend and friend," said
my master at once.

It was like the noble Prince thus to speak of our relation. I took his
hand in mine to kiss it, but this he would not permit.

"Shake hands like a man," he said, "or else kiss me upon the cheek. My
hand is for young, blue-painted flittermice to kiss, for whose souls'
good it is to put their lips to the hand that has shifted the meal-bags."

And with that Prince Karl embraced me heartily, and kissed me on
both cheeks.

"Now for this request of yours!" said he, looking expectantly at me.

"It is this," I answered him directly: "Give me a district to govern, a
tower to dwell in, and Helene to be my wife."

"Nay, but these are three things, and you stipulated but for one. Choose
one!" he said.

"Then give me Helene to wife!" I cried, instantly.

"Spoken like a lover," said the good Prince. "You shall have her if I
have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt. Something tells me
that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to
pass. But so far as it concerns me the thing is done. Yet remember, I
have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage."

He smiled a dry, humorsome smile--the smile of a shrewd miller casting
up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish
ripe to the harvest.

"I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not
foreseen this. By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when
she does know. I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains
with my friend the Margrave!"

He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish.

"Then the matter of a second," continued the Prince; "he is to fight,
of course?"

"No," said I; "principals only."

"I wonder," said the Prince, meditatively, "if there be anything in that.
It is not our Plassenburg custom between two young men, well surrounded
with brisk lads. Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point,
was more our ancient way."

"It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss," I
told the P