small; amounting to only 400 crowns (60 pounds) a year; which could
not be made to cover all the little expenses required in the
adjustments of ladies. This circumstance, added to our card-
playing, though small, which we could not dispense with, has led us
into debts. Mine amount to 225 pounds (1,500 crowns); my Sister's
to 270 pounds (1,800 crowns).

"We have not spoken of it to the Queen-Mother, though we are well
sure she would have tried to assist us; but as that could not have
been done without some inconvenience to her, and she would have
retrenched in some of her own little entertainments, I thought we
should do better to apply direct to Your Majesty; being persuaded
you would have taken it amiss, had we deprived the Queen of her
smallest pleasure;--and especially, as we consider you, my dear
Brother, the Father of the Family, and hope you will be so gracious
as help us. We shall never forget the kind acts of Your Majesty;
and we beg you to be persuaded of the perfect and tender attachment
with which we are proud to be all our lives,--Your Majesty's most
humble and most obedient Sisters and Servants,

"LOUISE-ULRIQUE; ANNE-AMELIE
[which latter adds anxiously as Postscript, Ulrique having written
hitherto],

"P.S. I most humbly beg Your Majesty not to speak of this to the
Queen-Mother, as perhaps she would not approve of the step we are
now taking." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii.
i. 387.]

Poor little souls; bankruptcy just imminent! I have no doubt