e, apology. Few know the extraordinary loyalty, the
silence and forbearing, which many servants exercise; but those who do,
and can prize it truly, have an added power in their hands and an immense
aid to their ambition. Maria, while absolutely silent regarding her
mistress's affairs, was fully informed concerning the rest of the
inhabitants of the Stuttgart castle and of their various opinions of
Wilhelmine, and all this she communicated while the latter lay abed
drinking her chocolate of a morning. In this manner Wilhelmine learned
many things of which she would otherwise have been ignorant.

One morning, about a month after the commencement of Wilhelmine's sojourn
at the castle, she was dressing at her leisure, her Highness having
commanded her presence at a later hour than usual. The window stood open,
and she could hear the whirl of wings as the doves flew about from the
roof of the inner courtyard or alighted on the stone balustrade below her
window. The heat had abated, and a faint sighing breeze was wafted
through the window. Maria had gone to the town to purchase a ribbon for
Madame de Ruth's spaniel, and the Graevenitzin remained alone. She leaned
back in a tall, carved chair, listening to the million sounds of silence.
Ah! Silence!--quiet! how she loved it! With yearning she realised how she
longed for the stillness of some deep wood or of some fragrant garden,
with Eberhard Ludwig at her side. True, she saw him daily at court; drove
with him on his fine coach drawn by eight horses; supped with him, sang
to him, knew herself to be his acknowledged mistress. There were stolen
interviews in her little room, moments of wondrous rapture and thrilling,
passionate surrender. Yet, somehow, she never had the sensation of being
entirely undisturbed, of enjoying the delight of solitude with him, safe
from possible interruption. She knew that her genuine passion for the
Duke was regarded by the court as an ordinary gallant adventure; her
relation with him classed among the unlovely liaisons of princes; and,
like each woman who considers her personal conduct, she imagined her own
love to be a thing utterly different to the passions of other
women--infinitely purer, absolutely apart. Also, she hated disapproval;
it had the power to vilify her, drawing out the worst in her nature. Then
the Duchess, who was possessed of all the harsh cruelty of the untempted
virtuous woman, constantly slighted the lady-in-waiting, whose prese