polite good-evening. Then, gazing into our faces
with those cold, piercing eyes of his, which seemed to look one through,
he patted us on the shoulders, heaved a heavy sigh, and muttering "Poor
lads, poor lads!" followed the servant along the corridor in the
direction of my father's study.

For the next few days Council followed Council, and from each the
Ministers drove away with gloomier faces. I have since learnt that the
failure of the crops in the northern provinces, and the consequent
dearness and scarcity of bread, had precipitated matters, and forced the
hands of those who were really at the bottom of the mischief. Somehow I
do not fancy that my father even at this, the gravest crisis of his
life, properly realised what the near future had in store for us. Having
devoted his attention to other matters for so long, he had lost his grip
of the public pulse, and in consequence was unable to realise the
deadliness of the disease that was taking possession of his country.
Like the dipsomaniac, who, in his own heart, is quite aware that to
indulge his craving is to court a certain and most terrible death, my
father persisted in his former line of action--or shall I say
_inaction_?--finding, it would seem, a recondite pleasure in
contemplating the approach of ruin. With my mother it was entirely
different. Wayward and impetuous as she had once been, she now proved
herself, by the feminine rule of contrary, I suppose, the best wife he
could have had under the circumstances. Where he was weak, she was
strong; she threw herself into the breach, and with counsel and
encouragement, and with an insight that marked her as a daughter of a
race of rulers, endeavoured, so far as lay in her power, to beat back
and outwit the foes who were hemming us in on every side. Upon one
person only, and then always excepting on one memorable occasion, the
peril in which we stood seemed to produce no outward effect. I allude to
Count von Marquart, the man whose personality stands out in that
terrible period, clear cut, impressive, and invariably heroic. The waves
of discord might dash and break at his feet, the winds of hatred shriek
about his devoted head, but, like a lighthouse in a storm, he stood
immovable--a guiding light to the end.

Though we did not think so at the time, and flattered ourselves that
everything would soon be set right, we were nearer the end than we
supposed. It was on the sixteenth of December, a date engraved in