tle, truthful eyes. Herr von Leuchtmar seated himself
opposite the Prince, and took his breakfast in silent reserve. Once the
Prince's eye scanned the noble, serious countenance of his former tutor,
and the expression of perfect repose resting there seemed to pique and
irritate him. He jumped up and several times walked briskly up and down
the room. Then he paused before Leuchtmar, who had likewise risen, and
whose large, dark-blue eyes were turned upon the Prince in gentle sorrow.

"Leuchtmar," said the latter, shortly and quickly, "all is not between us
as it should be."

"I have remarked it for some time with pain," replied the baron softly.
"Your highness is out of humor."

"No, I am discontented!" cried the Prince; "and, by heavens, I have a
right to be!"

"Will your highness have the kindness to tell me why you are discontented?"

"Yes, I will tell you, for you must know it in order that you may endeavor
to alter it. I am discontented, Leuchtmar, because you and Mueller will
never forget that I have owed respect to you as my teachers."

"Prince," said the baron, lifting his head a little higher--"Prince, have
we two behaved ourselves so as no longer to deserve your respect?"

"Respect, indeed; but you confound respect with obedience, and wish me to
obey you unreservedly, as if I were still a boy, subject to his teachers."

"While now you would say you are a Prince arrived at years of majority,
who no longer needs a teacher, and whose earlier preceptors are now only
his subjects, dependent upon him."

"No, I would not say that; and it is exceedingly obliging in you to carry
your guardianship so far as even to interpret what I would say. Meanwhile,
you have made a remark which claims my attention. You said that I was a
Prince in my majority?"

"Certainly, your highness, you are a major in so far as the laws of the
electoral house of Brandenburg allow the Electoral Prince, in case of his
father's death, if he has attained his sixteenth year, to assume the reins
of government, independent of governor or regent."

"Consequently, if my father were to die (which God forbid!) I might
administer the government independently, in my own right?"

"Independently and in your own right, your highness."

"Whence comes it then that I, who might undertake the government of a
whole country, am yet perpetually under restraint in the conduct of my own
private life, watched over and treated like an irresponsible boy? It
g