ed master, and read in my countenance that I am
devoted to you with my whole heart and soul. Ah! who knows how much longer
you will read that in my face, and how soon it may come to pass that poor
Adam Schwarzenberg will be thrust aside and no longer find a place in your
heart! Oh, dearest sir, when I think of that, I feel perfectly wretched
and inconsolable, and I would rather hide my head and weep and mourn, than
go smilingly to meet the joyful countenance of him who will come to
supplant me in your affections!"

"Nobody shall do that, Adam, and I know not, indeed, who could be bold
enough even to attempt it."

"Most gracious sir, the Electoral Prince will attempt it! He who, when a
mere little child, was my opponent. He, who has been brought up by his
mother and other relatives to mistrust me. He will grudge me the smallest
place in his father's heart, and will do everything to contest it with
me!"

"But he will not succeed, be assured of that, my Adam, he will not succeed
in it. I only know too well that in you I have a faithful, devoted
servant, in the Electoral Prince a rebellious and refractory son; that
with you all is bound up in my life; with him all in my death!"

"Oh, no, your highness, no, it is impossible that the Electoral Prince
could be so heartless and degenerate as to wish for his father's death.
No, I must take the part of the Electoral Prince against you. You accuse
him falsely, most gracious sir; he surely loves you, and it is only his
ambition and youthful arrogance that sometimes lead him to do what is not
right, and what surely he would not do if he only reflected better. Out of
youthful presumption he undertook, despite your commands to the contrary,
to remain longer at The Hague, and even to send back the Chamberlain von
Schlieben, whom you had dispatched to him with strict orders to bring him
home. And only his stormy, boundless ambition is at fault now in inducing
him to appear here in rather an unbecoming manner. But you must not be
angry with him for it, dear sir, and on that very account have I come to
you to-day, to beg and implore you most earnestly not to admit any
feelings of resentment into your mind this day, which is to restore to you
the Electoral Prince."

"He is coming, then, at last?" cried the Elector, breathing again. "He has
finally had the goodness to heed our oft-repeated commands, and
condescended to return home? But this return is, as I feel, likely enough
to prepar