CHAPTER IV.

THE MAID OF HONOR.

No intelligence of the demise of the great king had as yet arrived at the palace of Schönhausen, the residence of Queen Elizabeth Christine, Frederick's wife. It was still early in the morning, and the queen, who was in the habit of sending a special courier to Potsdam every day, to inquire after the king's health, was now writing the customary morning letter to her husband.

She had just finished the letter, and was folding the sheet, when the door of the adjoining chamber was opened, and a tall and remarkably beautiful young lady appeared on the threshold. Her rich, light, and unpowdered hair fell in a profusion of little locks around her high-arched brow. Her large, almond-shaped eyes were of a clear, luminous blue, her delicately-curved nose gave her countenance an aristocratic expression; and from her slightly-pouting crimson lips, when she smiled, all the little Cupids of love and youth seemed to send their arrows into the hearts of the admirers of the lovely maid of honor, Julie von Voss. Her tall and slender figure showed the delicate outline and the rich fulness which we admire in the statues of Venus, and there was, at the same time, something of the dignified, severe, and chaste Juno in her whole appearance--something unapproachable, that demanded deference, and kept her worshippers at a distance, after they had been attracted by her alluring beauty.

The queen greeted her maid of honor, who bowed profoundly, with a gentle smile. "You have come for my letter, have you not, my child? The courier is waiting?"

"No, your majesty," replied the maid of honor, in a somewhat solemn voice. "No, it is not a question of dispatching a courier, but of receiving one who begs to be permitted to see you. The valet of your royal nephew Frederick William is in the antechamber, and desires to be admitted to your presence."

The queen arose from her sofa with a vivacity unusual in one of her age. "The valet of my nephew?" said Elizabeth Christine, with quivering lips--"and do you know what brings him here?"

"He will impart his mission to your majesty only," replied the maid of honor; and when the queen sank back on the sofa, and told her in faltering tones to admit the courier, she threw the door open, and summoned the valet with a proud wave of the hand. And straightway the broad, colossal figure of the royal privy chamberlain Rietz appeared on the threshold. With a smile on his thick lips, and his little gray eyes fixed intently on the pale old lady, who stared at him with an expression of breathless anxiety, the chamberlain entered, and walked across the wide room to the queen's sofa with the greatest composure, although she had expressed no desire that he should do so.

"Your majesty," said he, without waiting permission to speak, "I have been sent by his majesty King Frederick William--"

The queen interrupted him with a cry of anguish. "By King Frederick William!" she repeated, in faltering tones. "He is then dead?"

"Yes," replied Rietz, inclining his head slightly. "Yes, King Frederick died last night; and he who was heretofore Prince of Prussia is now King of Prussia. His majesty sends the widowed queen his most gracious and devoted greeting; and orders me to inform her majesty that he will arrive here during the day to pay her a visit of condolence."

The queen paid no attention to the chamberlain's words; of all that he had spoken, she heard but this, that her husband, that Frederick the Great, was dead, that the man she had loved with such fidelity and resignation for the last fifty years was no longer among the living.

"He is dead! Oh, my God, he is dead!" she cried, in piercing accents. "How can life continue, how can the world exist, now that Frederick is no more! What is to become of unhappy Prussia, when the great king no longer reigns; what can it be without his wisdom and strength, and his enlightened mind?"

"Your majesty forgets that the king has a glorious successor," remarked Rietz, with cynical indifference.

A dark frown gathered on the brow of the maid of honor, Julie von Voss, when the chamberlain uttered these impertinent words; and she glanced haughtily at his broad, self-complacent countenance.

"Leave the room," said she, waving her hand imperiously toward the door; "wait in the antechamber till you are called to receive her majesty's reply and commands."

The chamberlain's countenance flushed with anger, but he quickly suppressed all outward manifestation of feeling, and assumed an humble and respectful manner.

"Your grace commands," said he, "and I am her zealous and obedient servant, ever ready to do her bidding. And herein I know that I am only fulfilling the desire of my royal master, who--"

"Leave the room at once!" cried the maid of honor, her cheeks flushing with anger.

"No," said the queen, awakening from her sad reverie; "no, let good Rietz remain, dear Julie. He must tell me of the great dead. I must know how he died, and how his last hours passed.--Speak, Rietz, tell me."

The chamberlain described the king's last hours in so ready and adroit a manner, managing to introduce the person of the new king so cleverly into his narrative, and accompanying his remarks with such intelligent and significant looks at the maid of honor, that she blushingly avoided his glances, and pressed her lips firmly together, as if to suppress the angry and resentful words her rosy lips longed to utter.

"I left his majesty King Frederick William in the death-chamber," said Rietz, as he finished his narrative. "But, even in the depth of his grief for his royal uncle, he thought of the living whom he loves so dearly, and commanded me to hasten to Schönhausen, to announce that he intended to gratify the longings of his heart by coming here, and that--"

"Will not your majesty dismiss the messenger?" interrupted the maid of honor in an angry voice.

"Yes, he may go," murmured Elizabeth Christine. "Tell the king my nephew that I await him, and feel highly honored by the consideration shown me."

"Your majesty, love and admiration draw him to Schönhausen," observed Rietz. "I can assure you of this, for the king confides every thing to me, and often calls me his--"

"Figaro," added the maid of honor, with a contemptuous curl of her proud lips.

"His friend," continued Rietz, without, as it seemed, having heard this cutting word. "I have the honor to know all my master's heart-secrets, and--"

"To be the husband of Wilhelmine Enke," exclaimed the maid of honor, passionately. "Your majesty, will you not dismiss the messenger?"

"You may go, Rietz," said the queen, gently. But Rietz still hesitated, and fastened his gaze upon the young lady, with a smiling expression.

"Your majesty," said she, "I believe he is waiting for a gratuity; and we will not be rid of him until he receives it."

Rietz broke out into loud laughter, regardless of the presence of the mourning and weeping queen. "This is comical," he cried. "This I will relate to his majesty; it will amuse him to learn that this young lady offers his privy chamberlain and treasurer a gratuity. He will consider it quite bewitching on her part, for his majesty finds every thing she does bewitching. But I am not waiting for a gratuity, but for permission to deliver to Mademoiselle von Voss the messages which his majesty intrusted to me for her grace, and I therefore beg the young lady--"

"Go out of the room, and wait in the antechamber until I send for you!" said the maid of honor, imperiously.

"And will you soon do so?" asked Rietz, with unruffled composure. "I take the liberty to remark, that I have other commissions to execute for his majesty, and therefore I ask whether you will soon call me?"

"You have nothing to ask, but only to obey," said the young lady, proudly.

Rietz shrugged his shoulders; bowed profoundly to the queen, who was wholly occupied with her grief, and had heard nothing of this conversation, and then left the room with a firm step.

"She is very proud, very haughty," growled Rietz in a low voice, as he threw himself into a chair in the antechamber with such violence, that it cracked beneath him. "That she is, and it will require much trouble to tame her. But she shall be tamed nevertheless; and the day will come when I can repay her abuse with interest. Figaro she called me. I know very well what that means; my French education has not been thrown away. Yes, yes, Figaro! I understand! The ever-complaisant servant of Count Almaviva, and the negotiator in the affair with the beautiful Rosine. Oh, my young lady, take care! I am the Figaro, to-day, helping to capture the fair Rosine, in order to deliver her over to Count Almaviva. But I, too, have my beautiful Susanna; and some day, when Almaviva wearies of his divine Rosine, he will turn again to my Susanna; and you will then be thrown in the background. Figaro! Ah, my lovely maid of honor, I will give you cause to remember having called me this name! I will speak to my wife about this matter before the day is over!"