"
"I promise it to your majesty," said Stein, solemnly. "I will wait;
blessed be the hour when Prussia needs me, and when I shall be able to
serve her again!"
"Yes, blessed be that hour!" exclaimed the queen, and, raising her eyes
piously to heaven, she whispered, "God grant that it may come soon, for
then a change in our circumstances will have taken place, and we shall
have passed from present incertitude to firm determination. Oh, how much
distress--how many disappointments and mortifications--until that change
shall come! May we have strength to bear, and courage to overcome them!"
CHAPTER XIX.
THE QUEEN AT THE PEASANT'S COTTAGE.
It was a stormy night. The wind was howling through the pines, and
driving the snow in dense clouds from the highway leading through, the
forest. There was no sound, save that of the winter's gale, and the
trees groaning beneath its power. A solitary light, twinkling as a star
through the dark woods, was shedding its beams on this desolate scene.
It proceeded from a small house near the main road, where the
forest-keeper had peacefully lived with his wife for more than twenty
years. On the hearth in the cottage a merry fire was burning, and
Katharine, the forest-keeper's wife, was industriously occupied with it,
while the young servant-girl, seated on a low cane chair near the
hearth, her hands clasped on her lap, had fallen asleep.
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