lls, looked pleasantly
demure on the occasion. So it remained settled in fact, though not in
form; and little Fred (a florid milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess)
made presents to his little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters
to her; and all along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently
enough became, her little lover and intended,--always rather a little
fellow:--to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she responded
with the due maidenly indifference, but not in an offensive manner.

After our Prussian Fritz's birth, the matter took a still closer form:
"You, dear Princess Caroline, you have now two little Princesses again,
either of whom might suit my little Fritzchen; let us take Amelia, the
second of them, who is nearest his age?" "Agreed!" answered Princess
Caroline again. "Agreed!" answered all the parties interested: and so it
was settled, that the Marriage of Prussia to England should be a Double
one, Fred of Hanover and England to Wilhelmina, Fritz of Prussia to
Amelia; and children and parents lived thenceforth in the constant
understanding that such, in due course of years, was to be the case,
though nothing yet was formally concluded by treaty upon it. [Pollnitz,
_Memoiren,_ ii. 193.]

Queen Sophie Dorothee of Prussia was always eager enough for treaty, and
conclusion to her scheme. True to it, she, as needle to the pole in
all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather, poor lady. Nor did the
Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time, draw back or falter: but
having very soon got wafted across to England, into new more complex
conditions, and wider anxieties in that new country, they were not so
impressively eager as Queen Sophie, on this interesting point. Electress
Sophie, judicious Great-Grandmother, was not now there: Electress Sophie
had died about a month before Queen Anne; and never saw the English
Canaan, much as she had longed for it. George I., her son, a taciturn,
rather splenetic elderly Gentleman, very foreign in England, and
oftenest rather sulky there and elsewhere, was not in a humor to be
forward in that particular business.

George I. had got into quarrel with his Prince of Wales, Fred's
Father,--him who is one day to be George II., always a rather foolish
little Prince, though his Wife Caroline was Wisdom's self in a
manner:--George I. had other much more urgent cares than that of
marrying his disobedient foolish little Prince of Wales's offspring; and
he alwa