King." "Every post brought letters from the Prince of Wales:" of
which Wilhelmina saw several,--this for one specimen, general
purport of the whole: "I conjure you, my dear Hotham, get these
negotiations finished! I am madly in love (AMOUREUX COMME UN FOU),
and my impatience is unequalled." {Ib. i. 218.] Wilhelmina thought
these sentiments "very, romantic" on the part of Prince Fred,
"who had never seen me, knew me only by repute:"--and answered
his romances and him with tiffs of laughter, in a prettily
fleering manner.

Effulgent flame-point;--which was of very brief duration indeed,
and which sank soon into bitterer smoke than ever, down almost to
the choking state. There are now six weeks of Diplomatic History
at the Court of Berlin, which end far otherwise than they began.
Weeks well-nigh indecipherable; so distracted are they, by
black-art and abstruse activities above ground and below, and so
distractedly recorded for us: of which, if it be humanly possible,
we must try to convey some faint notion to mankind.



Chapter II.

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS: EXCELLENCY HOTHAM PROVES UNAVAILING.

Already next morning, after that grand Dinner at Charlottenburg,
Friedrich Wilhelm, awakening with his due headache, thought, and
was heard saying, He had gone too far! Those gloomy looks of
Hotham and Dubourgay, on the occasion; they are a sad memento that
our joyance was premature. The English mean the Double-Marriage;