at. Do you wish to hear about the palace?"

"Of course I do, Hans."

"The schoolmaster says it has six hundred rooms. Just think of it!
And one of them, called the White Room, is furnished so grandly that
2,400,000 marks were spent on it. You can't imagine it, Bertha, of
course. I can't, either."

A German mark is worth about twenty-four cents of American money, so
the furnishing of the room Hans spoke of must have cost about
$600,000. It was a large sum, and it is no wonder the boy said he
could hardly imagine so much money.

"There are hundreds of halls in the palace," Hans went on. "Some of
their walls are painted and others are hung with elegant silk
draperies. The floors are polished so they shine like mirrors. Then
the pictures and the armour, Bertha! It almost seemed as though I
were there while the schoolmaster was describing them."

"I never expect to see such lovely things," said his sober little
sister. "But perhaps I shall go to Berlin some day, Hans. Then I
can see the statue of Frederick the Great, at any rate."

"It stands opposite the palace," said her brother, "and cost more
than any other bronze statue in the world."

"How did you learn that, Hans?"

"The schoolmaster told us so. He said, too, that it ought to stir
the blood of every true German to look at it. There the great
Frederick sits on horseback, wearing the robe in which he was
crowned, and looking out from under his cocked hat with his bright,
sharp eyes. That statue alone is enough to make the soldiers who
march past it ready to give their lives for their country."

[Illustration: Statue of Frederick the Great.]

"He lived when the different kingdoms were separated from each other,
and there was no one ruler over all of them. I know that," said
Bertha.

"Yes, he was the King of Prussia. And he fought the Seven Years' War
with France and came out victorious. Hardly any one thought he could
succeed, for there was so much against him. But he was brave and
determined. Those two things were worth everything else."

"That wasn't the only war he won, either, Hans."

"No, but it must have been the greatest. Did you know, Bertha, that
he was unhappy when he was young? His father was so strict that he
tried to run away from Germany with two of his friends. The king
found out what they meant to do. One of the friends was put to
death, and the other managed to escape."

"What did his father do to Frederick?" Ber