sm. I am at your service entirely--command me. His
first thought was for your mental needs. How is it with your knowledge
of French?

WILHELMINE.

The King detests all things foreign, and most of all does he detest
France, her literature, her language.

PRINCE.

The Crown Prince is aware of that. He sends you therefore, as a
beginning, a member of his Rheinsberg circle, a talkative but very
learned little man, a Frenchman, Laharpe by name--

WILHELMINE.

All instructors of the French language have been banished from Berlin by
strictest order.

PRINCE.

Laharpe will come to you without his identity becoming known.

WILHELMINE.

That is impossible. No one dare approach me who cannot first satisfy the
questioning of the Castle Guard.

PRINCE.

Cannot Laharpe instruct you in the apartments of your, Lady-in-waiting,
Frauelein von Sonnsfeld? WILHELMINE. Impossible.

PRINCE.

In the Queen's rooms, then.

WILHELMINE.

Impossible.

THE PRINCE.

By Heaven! Do they never leave you alone for one hour?

WILHELMINE.

Oh yes, two hours every Sunday--in church.

PRINCE.

But this is appalling! Why, in Versailles every Princess has her own
establishment when she is but ten years old--and even her very dolls
have their ladies-in-waiting!

WILHELMINE.

The only place which I may visit occasionally, and remain in
unaccompanied, are those rooms over there, in the lower story of the
palace.

PRINCE.

The King's private library, no doubt?

WILHELMINE.

No.

PRINCE.

A gallery of family portraits?

WILHELMINE.

Do you see the smoke issuing from the open window?

PRINCE.

That is--oh, it cannot be--the kitchen?

WILHELMINE.

Not exactly--but hardly much better. It is, I have the honor to inform
you, the Royal Prussian Laundry. Yes, Prince, the sister of the Prussian
Crown Prince is permitted to remain in that room for an hour or two if
she will, to look on at the washing, the starching, the ironing, the
sorting-out of body and house linen--

PRINCE.

This--for a Princess?

WILHELMINE.

Do you see the little window with the flower pots and the bird in a tiny
cage? The wife of our silver-cleaner lives there, and occasionally, when
the poor daughter of a King is supposed to be busied, like any
serving-maid, among the steaming pots and boilers, this same poor
Princess slips in secretly to the good woman's little room. Ah! there,
behind those flower-pots, I can laugh freely and merrily-