rmstadt, sometimes at the Burgfreiheit Palace,
sometimes at a chateau in the Herrengarten, surrounded by formal
gardens and orangeries. The girls were brought up simply, making
their own clothes, and going much among the poor. Now and then they
made expeditions to Strasburg or the Vosges Mountains; and, when the
Emperor Leopold was crowned at Frankfort, the Frau von Goethe housed
them hospitably, and was highly entertained by the glee with which
they worked a quaint sculptured pump in her courtyard. Two years
later the advance of French troops compelled them to seek refuge
with their eldest sister, the reigning Duchess of Hildburghausen;
and on their homeward way they visited the Prussian head-quarters,
that the Landgravine might present them to the king. His sons were
with him, and long afterward the Crown Prince told a friend, "I felt
when I saw her, 'tis she or none on earth."

The wooing was short. On April 24, 1793, he exchanged betrothal
rings with Louise, and then rejoined his regiment. Soon after, the
Princesses of Mecklenburg went over to the camp, Louise appearing "a
heavenly vision" in the eyes of Goethe, who saw her there.

In the December of that same year Berlin, gay with flags and ablaze
with colored lamps, welcomed Duke Charles and his daughters; and on
Christmas Eve the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed on
her fair head, and in her glistening silver robe she took part in
the solemn torch procession round the White Saloon.

Then her young husband took her home to their palace in the "Unter
den Linden." They were very happy. In the sunshine of his wife's
presence the prince's spirit, crushed in childhood by a harsh tutor,
soon revived, while Louise, though the darling of the court, was
always most content when alone with him.

"Thank God! you are my wife again," he exclaimed, one day, when she
had laid aside her jewels.

"Am I not always your wife?" she asked, laughingly.

"Alas! no; too often you can be only the crown princess."

Her father-in-law never wearied of showering kindnesses on his
"Princess of Princesses." On her eighteenth birthday he asked if she
desired anything he could give. "A handful of gold for the Berlin
poor," was the prompt petition.

"And how large a handful would the birthday child like?"

"As large as the heart of the kindest of kings."

The Castle of Charlottenberg, one of his many gifts to the young
pair, proving too splendid for their simple tastes, he