his thoughts and his smile.  He thought she must feel it, and his looks and thoughts must bring her to the window.  He stopped and looked up—­but Ludovicka did not appear at the window; only an orange-colored ribbon was fluttering there in the sunshine and the wind, and Frederick William smiled joyfully, for he took it as a token of good fortune.  Then he entered the castle, reverentially greeted by the lackeys, who ventured not to oppose him, as with rapid bounds, like a young deer, he sprang up the steps.  Straight to the apartments of the Princess Ludovicka he strode, through the antechamber into the drawing room.  But she was not there; she came not to meet him in her enchanting beauty, with that affectionate smile upon her crimson lips.  No, Ludovicka was not there, and the chambermaid who officiously hurried from the adjoining room informed the Prince that her most gracious young lady had already been gone an hour on a visit to The Hague, whence she would not return till the next morning.  But the sharp, cunning eyes of the Abigail, had meanwhile peered through the door, which the Prince had left open, out into the antechamber, and, finding that no one was there, the Prince having come quite alone, she approached nearer to him.

“Most gracious sir,” she whispered, “I was, however, to have gone into town and handed something for the Electoral Prince to his valet, to whom I am engaged.”

“Now it will be more convenient for you, Alice,” said the Electoral Prince cheerfully.  “You need no third party.  I am here myself.  Give to me personally what you would have given to my valet, your respected betrothed, for me.”

“Here it is,” whispered Alice, drawing from the pocket attached to her girdle by a silver chain a little note, which, with a graceful bow, she handed to the Prince.

“And here is your reward,” he said, taking a gold piece from his purse and handing it to her.  She took it, blushing with confusion, and bowed down to the earth.

“If it pleases your grace to read here,” whispered she, “I will guard the door.”

He shook his head and rushed out.  No, not in that narrow, close room, not in the neighborhood of that tiresome chambermaid could be read the letter of his beloved—­that letter which he believed, nay, knew, contained the last decision for sealing his whole future fate.  In the open air, under God’s blue sky, in the warm and radiant autumn sun, would he receive the message of his beloved, would he take to his heart what the angel of his life had to communicate to him.  As rapidly as he had stormed up he again sprang down the steps, and through the well-known rooms and corridors took the way leading to the park.  He was well acquainted with it, for he had often taken it at the side of his aunt, the unfortunate Bohemian Queen and Electress, who had found a refuge here in Holland at the court of her uncle, the Stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange, and had her little residence at Castle Doornward.  He had often walked it with the princesses, her daughters, and very bright and pleasant hours had he passed in that beautiful park with Princess Ludovicka.