,
even when the lips utter not aloud what the heart is whispering within?"

"Elizabeth!" cried the Elector, "now I _know_ it; you have received
tidings from our son, and vexatious tidings! Yes, yes, that is it! I know
those tender looks and beaming eyes; it is not my wife that I recognize in
them: it is the mother of our Electoral Prince, Frederick William."

"Ah! what an acute observer you are, George, and how well you understand
how to read my countenance! Well, now, you shall have it in all candor. I
have news from our dear Electoral Prince."

"He notifies us, I trust, that he has followed our instructions strictly
and to the letter, and is now on his way home?" asked the Elector, gazing
upon his wife with anxious, inquiring glances.

But Elizabeth avoided his look.

"What!" cried George William angrily, "you do not answer me! You can not,
therefore, respond to my questions with a joyful Yes! Can it be possible,
then, that the Electoral Prince has disregarded my commands, that--"

"Do not allow yourself to be so excited, George," interrupted the
Electress. "First hear his motives and excuses before you grow angry with
our son."

"From all those motives and excuses I shall only gather that he will not
come," cried the Elector.

"Say rather that he can not come," returned Elizabeth, while she gently
forced back her husband, who in his excitement and impatience had made an
effort to rise. "Yes, I have letters from The Hague, my dear husband,
letters from both our uncle, the Prince of Orange, and my mother, and I
dare affirm that these letters have given me heartfelt joy, inasmuch as my
uncle the Stadtholder, as well as my mother, write of our dear son that he
is an accomplished Prince, in whom one may reasonably rejoice, and whom we
may be proud to call our son. You know, George, that during these three
years of his sojourn in Holland, we have ever had good and complimentary
accounts of him. His tutor, von Kalkhun, has often reported to us with
what diligence our son applied himself to his studies at Leyden, and that
he had become quite a learned Prince, in whom even the professors
themselves took peculiar delight. Then when he had finished his course of
studies at Leyden and went to Arnheim, where he met with the Princes
William of Orange and Maurice of Nassau, they could not sufficiently laud
the handsome appearance, lofty spirit, and noble heart of our young
Electoral Prince."

"Truly," muttered the Elector